Women of honor,
of heartfelt determination,
love with streaming tears.
They fight and they bleed
with passion
for their children,
their men, their communities.

Women of honor
laugh in drunken splendor
so hard and so often
during the good times
that for a brief moment,
the men forget there are bad times.

These beautiful creatures,
these women of majesty,
they deserve the best poetry
injected into their souls.

A guy in a suit at the bar
cracked an unfunny joke.
It was the kind of joke
only office drones understand
or find amusing.
His buddy spit out his whiskey
from the involuntary chuckle.
The guy said, ‘Hey, man,
you’re wasting perfectly good scotch.’
I thought the joke was a waste
of perfectly good words.

-Ron Gavalik

Samantha with the dark eye shadow
and the generous hips,
she whined when she was hungry,
angry, or dissatisfied in any conceivable way.
A hard **** session allowed me
to exorcise the meteor shower of madness
she regularly rained down upon my world.
Spreading that tight ***** with my ****,
feeling her flesh stretch wide
around my shaft
delivered a true sense of retribution.
Listening to her whimper through a clenched jaw
while she bit down on her bottom lip
brought almost the same satisfaction
as the ****** when I pushed in deep
to fill her with ***.

Fortunately for the both of us,
I knew we were finished
once the whining fueled my desire to flee,
rather than the need to balance
the scales of justice.

A man goes to work.
He sells his skills, his talents,
his ******* soul.
He pounds sidewalks, rides on buses,
flies on planes, and he drives in endless traffic.
The working man sacrifices
day after day
for his family.

On his own, that man will game the system,
he’ll do what he must
to scrape by on his own.
Dress codes, schedules, bosses, labor,
he puts up with forced servitude
out of the purest form of love
for his woman and his children.

On a few special days
that mark the working man’s life,
he deserves the best food and drink,
the devotion of his woman at his side,
and he deserves the companionship
of his closest allies.

I really have no idea
how anyone can love a writer.
We're great observers,
but terrible people.
Marry a carpenter or a welder.
They know how to build
things worthy of your heart.
All a writer can do is howl
at the moon in madness
and chase the dreams
that never come.

-Ron Gavalik

On the sidewalk, in the spring rain,
she scowled at me hard,
the way a lion eyes its prey.
She stood motionless, silent, soaked.
The rain, or tears, rolled down her cheeks
and dripped from her chin.
An invisible rage radiated from her aura
that struck instant fear in the current of passersby
who rushed around her on that gray day.

My soul had been murdered before,
and so I figured, why not again.
Under the awning of that coffeehouse,
all I could do was not give a ****.
I lit my acid cigar and puffed
until the smoke clouded my vision.
That day, I would die or I would live.
Either way, there was no sense trying to control
events or time, when the inevitable rebirth
was certain, and would change everything.

The reasons for the standoff
and its conclusion are unimportant,
mere details we've all lived
and forgotten.

Standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street
during a lunch break at the job,
a long funeral procession drove through the intersection.
The hearse and the limousine appeared washed,
they shined under the winter sun.
The other cars were older, filthy from salt
and road dirt. No one had time
for car washes when their friend or relative
lay dead in a box.

Most of the cars in the endless line
were driven by young men, their jaws clenched,
and their eyes focused straight on the road ahead.
Young women sat in some of the passenger seats,
their eyes puffy and red
as their attention roamed the city.

Eventually the cars stopped.
One sedan was stuck in the middle of the intersection,
driven by an older man, alone.
His eyes met mine, but he stared through me.
I removed my hat and bowed my head,
a gesture in a world we can’t understand
or hope to control.

The procession began to move forward.
Before he drove forward,
the man formed a slight smile
under his tortured eyes.
In those few seconds, he and I mourned
together, without names or histories.
It didn’t really matter.

The sun during winter
often plays the role of trickster,
a false prophet of hope.
Its rays of light bounce off
parked cars and shop windows,
luring us out of our cozy beds
under the guise of a warm embrace.
As fools, we venture outdoors
and believe the air will not assault us.
Unfortunately, we discover winter
has conned the sun to help it
carry out the vengeance
of a scorned Iover.

The heavy dark eyeshadow
that wrapped around your blue gems
projected a depth
I later learned you simply didn't have.
Standing on the sidewalk,
kicking pebbles against a brick wall,
Dave approached.
I didn't speak. There was nothing
to say, and he read the sorrow on my face.
‘They can't all be artists,’
he said in a humorous tone.
We studied the complex surface of the moon
in silence, for at least fifteen minutes
before we parted for the night.

Watching the planet thrash
in tortured pain
is akin to watching on helpless
as a friend loses weight,
their energy, their hair
while battling an aggressive cancer.
The cancer of this small blue world
is the most gluttonous enemy.
Blinded by its miserable conquest
to consume and exploit
everything in its path,
the cancer does not stop
until it murders its host
and destroys its only means
for survival.

On the construction site,
I dropped a shoulder of 2X4s.
While retrieving the planks,
I cursed the sky and the job.
An older guy barked at me,
‘This ****’s better than jail.’
His wisdom taught me
there are two prisons:
one with and one without
visible steel bars.

—Ron Gavalik

At the coffee shop, a young black man in glasses
asked if he could plug his laptop
into the same outlet that charged my typer.
While he pulled the cord out of his backpack,
I asked if he had homework.

‘No," he said. "I'm looking for a job.’
‘What kind of job?’
‘Any job,’ he said
and let out a desperate kind of snort
usually only heard from older men,
humiliated by the world,
beaten down by life.

‘****'s tough out there, kid.’
‘I know the platitudes,’ he said.
He then stuck his nose into the screen.
I walked up to the counter for a refill,
to give the boy a little space.

The new generation,
they know how to use words
like platitude, but they can’t earn
enough for a home and internet
to avoid the men who use them
in place of real solutions.

Sitting in the bar on a slow night,
a young robotics engineer from Europe
attending graduate school in Pittsburgh,
lamented about American politics.
"I don't know what's going to happen,"
he said. "There’s nothing we can do."
"Wait a minute," I said.
“Aren't you developing vertical farming technology?"
"Yes, that's right."
"So the poor can feed themselves?"
"Definitely.”
"Sounds to me that you’re doing plenty."
The young friend didn't reply,
and instead took a pull from his beer.
A minute later he laughed hard
at something on the television.
He wore a permanent smile
for the rest of the night.

A long time ago,
I thought about you every day.
The memories were fresh,
kind of like a new book
on my reading pile next to the bed.
Over the course of years,
new chapters of new books
pushed your memories deeper
into the bookshelf of knowledge and experience.
I haven't forgotten or lost love for you.
Your memories are part of my prized collection,
the leather-bound hardback
I occasionally read while sipping whiskey
after a hard year on this Earth.

The best part of democracy
is taking the opposite position
of the lynch mob
on a public issue of the day.
The more they cry foul,
the more stubborn others become.
This behavior reminds the mob
popular rage
and the lust of desire
should never supersede
our freedom.

The lack of ****** desire
for a woman kills any chance
at forming a romantic relationship.
Too much ****** desire
prematurely destroys
all romantic relationships.
Con artists write self-help books
and launch expensive dating sites
to convince us they possess
the magic formula for success in love.
In truth, if we **** and love each other
without the shackles of pre-defined
relationship statuses, political parties,
or other false marketing demographics,
happiness becomes a simple achievement.

The fresh snowfall is celebrated,
adored for its natural beauty,
a wintertime treat.
The novelty of that beauty vanishes
with time and new fascinations.
As we step on and drive over
that which was once beloved,
a black slush forms along the curb,
used, tired, corrupted,
despised for its filth.

I've always preferred the sinners,
the modest and damaged souls
who understand our vast imperfections.
The righteous and their values,
they've never embodied the ideal
way of life so many others pursue.
Give me the drunkard, the ****,
the pauper who blows powder
and his harmonica under the bridge.
They are my truths
in an ocean of lies.

All that really matters
in this short life
is how well we dance
through the fires in our paths.
That bitter taste in the morning
of waged servitude,
the dire consequences of *******
long and deep for simple pleasures,
and the eternal quest for imagined love,
these are the fires of our early deaths.
Warriors fight their enemies
to the point of exhaustion and collapse.
The dancers, the artists,
they use their nimble bodies
and creative minds to shuffle between
the hottest coals
with style and grace.

In our young adult years,
the novelty of liberation
sparked our imaginations.
We stayed out all night
in diners and on the streets.
We ****** whomever we chose
without fear
of man made consequences.
We penned horrible stories,
painted absurd portraits,
and drew the weakest comics.
Still, we were free spirits
with fresh souls
that we truly believed
would live forever.

A little boy at a local park
tried over and over again to scale
a child-sized rock climbing wall.
Over and over again he'd lose his grip
and fall into the grass
while his father watched on.

A random woman said to the father,
"Why don't you help him?"
"He's not making a sandwich,"
the man replied
without removing his eyes from the boy.
The woman pursed her lips
and walked away.

After what seemed to be about 97 attempts,
that little boy, his clothes and hair riddled with dirt,
finally scaled the wall.
Atop the playground equipment,
he raised his hands in triumph.
The look of delight and achievement
that formed on the boy’s face
was the reminder that
all things are possible.

Independence is celebrated
as a resource of strength, power.
The problem with independence
is we often allow it to take over
our lives, to define us
and our place in the world.
That's when we push others away,
those who love and cherish us,
and they deserve the contributions
we have withheld.

The raindrops that fell
against the window this morning
were in perfect sync
with the coffee drips that fell
into my cup.
Down on the sidewalk,
a man in a suit and a woman in a dress
scurried along under an umbrella.
I watched for them to march in lockstep,
but it never happened.
Sometimes we thirst for the simplicity
of order,
and other times we quietly celebrate
the chaos.

In city traffic one fall morning,
a driver of a rusted white sedan,
probably on the way to a job,
sped through a red light
at the top of a hill,
near a school zone.

A woman in pink sweat pants
grabbed the backpack attached to her young son
and yanked him close
as the sedan swerved in the crosswalk
at the last moment
before obliterating them both
on the street.

In bars and in churches
and all over social media,
we question our violent culture.
No one seems to have the answers,
yet we ignore the truth.
We're expected to suspend our humanity,
to **** anyone who crosses our paths
for the privilege to work and earn,
all so we can eat.

Walking home from dinner
I learned a robot was granted citizenship
in Saudi Arabia.
That's the moment I realized
humanity had reached its pinnacle
during the ****** revolution
of the 1960s.
Thirty of forty years from now,
we will sit quietly in nursing homes,
and we will wonder
what the **** happened
that humanity allowed itself
to be replaced.

A lot of **** goes down on sidewalks.
The most desperate souls
sell their bodies and their spirits
for a little bread that only leads
to temporary solutions, escapes
from everlasting problems.
They seek what they will never find,
peace within the landscape,
among the masses who profit
from their predictable failures
and untimely deaths.

There are people of substance
all around us
who explore their worlds.
These people read books,
help their neighbors,
and eat delicious food with family.
These people laugh hard from the gut.
They pray and weep
over lost friends and lost causes.

Surrounded by so many unfortunate souls
who live in perpetual dumpster fires,
the occasional conversation
with someone who truly lives
is a rare gift of life.

There's a beauty that emerges
within those who have the courage
to break with conventional thinking.

The worker who finally tells off the boss,
no one owns him.
The **** who ignores the shaming,
she enjoys being enjoyed.
The father who embraces his gay son,
his career status be ******.

That flicker of confidence
in the eyes of those who awaken
to their truths
is living art, a gift
that each of us
can experience.

Violence,
much like hopes and dreams,
the search for truth
and justice,
is not pursued solely by the mad.
Sometimes, the most mild-mannered person
walking down the sidewalk
can no longer absorb
the constant onslaught of attacks
doled out by life,
and suddenly,
the gun, the knife, the bomb,
they make a lot more sense.

After a long week at the job,
the demon voices in our heads scream in fury,
they rage at our better angels
who agreed to the working life,
all those many years wasted
on waged servitude.
After a long week of torment,
the voices of the demons
grow so loud and violent,
that we have no choice, but to escape
in the bottle, the powder, the *****.
No matter how intoxicating the self-abuse
those demons continue to murmur.
Much in the way we’re indentured
to the system that imprisons us,
the demon voices in our heads
will never leave.

On late Saturday nights
under the magnificent city skyline,
the young **** themselves
at varying rates of speed.
The old lie awake in their beds,
reminiscent of the better times.
All I can do is write my music
between mouthfuls of bourbon
and remember why I love you.

As a child, I valued the loyalty
of friendships and family above all other
human endeavors.
That commitment led to consistent doses of disappointment.
In my adult years, those harsh lessons
have taught me the simple truth,
that comrades and cousins,
romantic partners and parents,
they carry the rich aroma of the best coffee.
Much like coffee, they help us
through our days, and give us a savory
expectation to greet each new morning.
Also much like coffee,
the mugs that contain those relationships
eventually run dry.
We can scramble to refill the meanings
behind each valued connection,
but we're often better off switching
to a lonely glass of whiskey.