I held the door open
She looked at the ground
and walked
past me
I didn't feel anger
only the sad truth
We live and breathe
dystopia

The poets in the digital age
hunger for constant approval.
As cowards, they hide in fear
behind the mob's outrage.
In a constant search for validation
within shallow mud puddles,
every penned word betrays
the pursuit of truth in art.
Lost in a fog of redactions,
I just don't know
if these poets will ever find
truth again.

-Ron Gavalik

Sometimes the sadness
comes like a sucker punch
to the back of the head.
The assailant disappears
into the crowded street,
and we are stuck
nursing a painful wound,
never really knowing
its reason or cause.

-Ron Gavalik

The tattoo artist
with the dreadlocks and the comic book t-shirts,
he'd stand in front of his shop
chain smoking and drumming up business
from passersby most nights of the week.
The first few times I walked past
we ignored each other.
Eventually came the head nods,
and then the quick greetings.
The day I stopped
and asked him for a tattoo,
he chuckled and said, ‘It's about time.’
Even though we had never previously spoken,
for one evening inside the tattoo shop,
that artist an I rhapsodized for hours
as old friends.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away...

Her: I think I’m a pretty awful person.

Me: Send nudes.

Her: Guess I’m not that awful.

Me: Precisely.

Her: Wait, do you really want nudes or are you trying to show me how awful I’m not?

Me: Both.

Her: Sigh...

Life, baby. It is what it is.

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 days she went mad,
her eyes danced in their sockets
the way a lion paces inside its cage.
Her fingernails, man,
they dug through flesh
like the last few jagged shards
of her soul, or sharp regrets
of an unfulfilled life.

A sparrow landed in a city park
near a black cat sprawled out in the grass.
The bird began to chirp, chirp, chirp,
in the way drunkards ramble in bars.
Clearly irritated, the cat crouched low,
its ears back, ready to pounce.
After about a minute, the cat relaxed.
It must have figured killing the bird
would ruin the mellow mood of the day.
A moment later, the bird took off
and vanished in the trees.
The cat flopped itself
back into the grass.

-Ron Gavalik

There's a sadness
that flows through the veins
of people who survive empire.
For some, the sadness transforms
into a base fear of the unknown,
cowardice validated by con-artists
in the open air and by charlatans
who profit deep in the shadows.
The sadness in others can transform
into rage fueled by the thirst
for courage, truth, a moral balance.
Sadness that leads to action
to correct injustices,
that’s the only possible deliverance
from anguish and despair.

You have more power
than you realize
The problem is
you're more worried
about gossip
and hatred of neighbors
Therefore you stay apart
and never come together
That power is lost

–Ron Gavalik

In the first pandemic
of the 21st Century,
there's nothing to do,
but get drunk on well bourbon,
scream at the memories
of ****** gone astray,
and write poetry
on cheap paper.

–Ron Gavalik

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.

After a tough week at the job,
a coworker slid on her coat.
"It's a Long Island Iced Tea kinda night,"
she said in a flat tone,
and with a straight face.
"Whatever gets the job done,"
I said, hoping she’d smile
at our brief liberation.
Instead, she stared through me,
as if I'd spoken some great truth.
She then walked out of the building
without saying goodbye.

-Ron Gavalik

In the mid-1990s I worked as a bartender
on the second floor of a local hotdog joint
near the University of Pittsburgh.
I poured beers and mixed simple drinks
for working class drunks.
The felons always had a game or a magic trick
they’d use to milk rubes for a free gin and tonic.
College students mostly stayed away,
but the ones who stumbled in ordered drafts,
paid for by daddy’s allowance
or the petty drug rackets they ran on campus.
In the summer, the best ***** came around,
**** pushed out of their tops,
*** cheeks crept below their skirts.
They knew how to find action
every single night.

Except one overweight girl named Susie
from the all girl’s school down the road.
She’d come to the bar alone,
her lips caked with dark red lipstick.
Like many students, Susie wanted to be older.
She’d order ***** martinis,
drink quietly, and she’d patiently wait
for one of the older drunks to make a move.
It never happened.

Sometimes Susie complained to me
about other girls at her college,
that they were aggressive lesbians.
All of them wanted to eat her ******.
‘Those ******* are as bad as the men,’ she’d say.
But then she’d laugh it off.
‘I really love ****,’ she told me.
‘I think about **** and *** all the time.’

One night Susie owed the bar $27.50.
She always tried to flirt her way past the tab.
I never let her get away with it.
‘Do you like me?’ she said.
I laid down my trademark response,
‘You’re the best.’
‘No, do you really like me?’
I figured she deserved a real compliment.
‘You have the sexiest lips here.’

She climbed off the barstool
and walked to the backdoor, the fire escape.
She then curled her finger at me to join her.
Outside on the small rusted iron landing,
above the roach-filled dumpster,
Susie crouched between my legs.
Both of us worked to unbuckle my belt.
A swarm of hands pulled down my jeans.
I looked up at the few stars between buildings
as those red lips and soft tongue became my drug,
a back alley escape from a ******* life.
When I unloaded, she refused to let go.
She swallowed it all. $27.50 paid in full,
plus tip.

That’s how we went for a while.
I gave Susie small escapes from lesbians.
Susie gave me small escapes from life.
Eventually, she stopped coming around.
I figured she graduated.
Perhaps her classmates finally got their wish.
Either way, I never saw her again.

I poured the last
of the whiskey
into a glass
and then walked out.
It waits for me
atop the stove
as another chance
after the failures
of labor
and love.

–Ron Gavalik

There was a time
when the sight of your lips
made me want to **** you
inside bar bathrooms
and atop the kitchen counter.
Those days are now gone,
and I no longer have any desire
to own you. There is nothing
remaining inside to give or say.
So I will walk away
alone, upon tired sidewalks
to never love again.

—Ron Gavalik

The day I walked off a job,
without having another lined up,
the most pronounced emotion
that bubbled up through the stew
was that of liberation.
Positive as that may be,
most people equate self-determination
with the tranquility of happiness.
Certainly, one can lead to the other,
but staring at the stack of bills
shows us the bridge we must build
to span the divide
between freedom and our lives
requires our sweat and torment,
our blood and tears,
and often times,
our souls.

sometimes
sidewalks appear
as graveyards
full of open mouths
and closed eyes
beauty goes unnoticed
and love
unfulfilled

–Ron Gavalik

I often wonder
what the world wants
or expects of me.
Then I realize the truth.
All people from all places,
they search all their lives
for happiness.
Some people want and expect
me to deliver it upon them.
The smart ones, they pursue
happiness on their own.

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.

The night went on
as the madness kept coming.
There was nothing
I could do
to stop it.
Eyes closed,
I prayed long and hard
for the dawn.

—Ron Gavalik

When it rains
whiskey thoughts
wander in lust
Memories surface
of love and hate
That steady patter
contrasts
the chaos
we live

Working a job
is about performing tasks
that earn the boss
more money
than he’ll ever pay.
Our choices are simple:
conform
starve or
rebel.

One day I will die.
I'm reconciled to that truth.
My own death does not concern me.
The teenage boy who knocks on doors
in the rural white neighborhood,
he looks for odd jobs and new friends.
That boy really digs *** and bicycles,
girls, video games, and basketball.
One day, an older resident, propagandized
by cable news and talk radio,
they will call the cops in paralyzed fear,
and then that boy will be wiped
from the face of the Earth.

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.

Sitting in the diner at 4:00 AM,
it's just me and the waitress,
and the trucker in the back booth
slowly sipping his coffee.
The waitress says she can't wait
until dawn so she can leave.
I don't have the heart to tell her
the trucker and I are desperately hanging on
to the last glimpses of moonlight.

Across the street, spray-painted words
are scrawled across a concrete wall
that read, ‘Live for today
because there is no tomorrow.’
Prophetic truths
that do not lead to tangible improvements
often lose their meaning, their power.
Communities lost and without direction
begin to decay.

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.

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.

Wake at 6:30
Drive to work
Rain
Traffic
Trump stickers
Hit a pothole
Spill coffee
Arrive late
**** on your fly
Life

Sometimes I'm the boy
who stood helpless
on my grandmother's porch
looking down the hill
upon Hell's fire
and the black plumes
that pushed men
into early graves

–Ron Gavalik

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.