Poems By John Greiner

John Greiner's poetry and fiction has been published in Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Value, Upstairs at Duroc, Poetry City, USA and numerous other magazines. His chapbooks, pamphlets and collections of short stories include Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press, 2014), Modulation Age (Wandering Head Press, 2012) Shooting Side Glances (ISMs Press, 2011) and Relics From a Hell’s Kitchen Pawn Shop (Ronin Press, 2010).

Trench Coat

In Arizona there are no Gogol overcoats

but once east and up to the city New York

wintertime comes radiator rattling with heat

steam escape wishes from the street iced black and sleek

there is the need for an uncomplicated warmth

while walking

all my winters east with no Arizona December holiday

carols sung out in the desert made lush by man

left me cold with an old East German surplus trench coat

from the no longer this far west remembered

Erich Honecker age

Phoenix abandoned following his brother

came Joshua to the island off the Islands where the

the cripples and the lunatics once roamed

and around which Edgar Allan Poe rowed

there with wind whipping off the waters

he stood slept and longed for April in shirtsleeves

I gave him the coat off my back

since then so many winters and springs have past

and I have been asked by Josh and his bride-to-be Karen

to marry them on the far better Dumbo Brooklyn shore

in summer downstream from long left behind "Rosie"

already in the wilderness I went online and was ordained

via email in the seminary minutes

Josh Karen best man brother Ryan and me

meet in Sanford's Diner to talk over the ceremony

eat omelets drink beer followed by shots

Ryan suggests we head up the street to the bikini bar

we go but the go-go girls are not yet awake

and so we continue with our walk a few blocks more

while Ryan stays behind standing on the corner waiting

to see what the neighborhood will become

Legend of Kremlin vodka at my apartment

while listening to Boris Gudunov on the radio

this my midnight at midday Karen bids me goodnight

brings Josh back to his feet for the processional farewell

in the bedroom where the blinds block out the sun feebly

I listen to the quiet and touch the steel radiator unused cold

I think of the summer to come their summer of honeymoon

and wonder about all of the winters that have passed

and where the long gray East German trench coat has gone

perhaps it hangs in the back of some closet or on a Salvation Army rack

or lays in a box mothball covered waiting for January's mirth

Sun

I've got my faith

and my camel hair coat back

from the drycleaners

there are cries in the wilderness

I mime my half-deaf excuse

I listen closely when I can

pick up tongues on Pentecost

and save wages

for a new flame thrower

to say the least

I've got that old time religion

with all the sacraments

symbols and dark nights

of the soul roads to salvation

my savior's got an Icarus ambition

and dripping candle wax fetish

he's been looking for a big fix all

for some time and can't keep

his anguish to himself

he weeps in the confessional

come subway car

where everyone's got better sins

and show time is about to begin

I've always preferred

the third rate mariachi bands

to the ecstatic dancers

working out their moves

between Queensboro Plaza

and Lexington Avenue

come on

Daedalus' boy needs

to set the score straight

I need that conversion

I've been wasted by this vampire shtick

I make sense of the symbols

put all of my chips on the summer solstice

and finally hit

after a lost five seasons

in nighttime nightmare

with the break of day

a call from the highest heavens

of all these nighttime days

says that I will be missed

but I won't miss any of this

I am so afraid of the dark

of all of the raw sore shadows

who race about raven brilliant

through the pitch black

I can't tolerate closed blinds

in the daytime snuffing out the sun

I can't endure another afternoon

drenched in sweat sleep

I can't stand the school bells ringing

the half-wake fright rattling

up far-off grade school days remembrance

backhanded fist flying hard knuckled nuns

Sister I'm going to live in the lustrous hours

not giving a good God damn

about the sanguinary sacrament

I've got a bottle of mezcal to bust open

on this salvation day

no more need to worry about the degradation

drop into the star skies that you can't

even see in this city anyhow

I made my religion

I've arrived at my kingdom come

I've got my resurrection

my soul has been saved

A Lower Eastside Poem

Avenue C mid-week morning

out to lunch Eric Dolphy

so long don't stay over there

too long

I'm gone and all Loisaida

someday will be no more

but for now there's mofongo

Casa Adela and then up

to the Blarney Cove

skip the B to D romance

Iggy Pop

Mink DeVille

I drag along knowing today

I'll not climb up on a

tenement sky

so I slump instead

to a stool shot

and beer bought

the TV tuned to nothing new

which causes consternation

all the same

across the street Stuyvesant town

once meant something

so much more

get rid of the Gaslight

get out of the ghetto

and have a bit of green in between

The Night Watch

Persistent shock of night time present

the future curves back lost

calamity thrill and jubilation grief

thoughts freefall into amnesia

as I grasp at a past pulled in dull hours

at the computer after the daily

accounting has been done

I search out the census records

I settle down to death certificates

I find my father's uncle Clarence

never known

buried in the cemetery long abandoned

the paperwork on his childhood passing

better kept then his tombstone tumbled

I turn up my grandfather a rooming house boarder

I see my father before the war

cheerful child playing out the last days of the Depression

both became gravediggers

I listen to the LPs of my paper route

collection day pay saved up play in the night so far

from Rock 'n Roll ambitions

beneath Marquee Moon

Remain in Light

Velvet Underground

   Lou Reed

New York as the reason for my New York

up to Lexington 1-2-5

down to Union Square

New York as New York

I claw at the dirt

seek out computer screen

ossuaries

I gravedigger

who should have taken up

the pickaxe and shovel sooner

return

at last to the family tradition

I collect

bones of friends

Adam got lost

at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge

dragged himself drunk

to New Orleans

Patient Zero

who suffered

the final stroke

in San Francisco

bones of childhood taunters

Butch the bully

from Catholic grade school days

killed in a car crash

on a camping trip

all the dust talk

on Ash Wednesdays

never having been

taken seriously

this the night watch

the audit of ins and outs

apparitions count for more

on empty streets

in vacant rooms

than the concrete corners

where so much time is spent

I step out

Whack-a-Doodle Saturday Night

With the Whack-a-Doodle

subway train Saturday night

come out

you cadaverous once kids

long gone and now lore

cautionary triumphs

this was once a city

come on

fight bone brittle for a seat

fall back fix your make-up

and tomorrow find time for a shave

there are still raves

screams howls soft smiles

disco ball shatters

back up that skull some

and you'll get it
all these sunken ages

make a mythology

fit for the Halloween House of Horrors

Suffolk Street

Warriors

come out

to play

there's no way

I'm going to go

down

Coney Island tonight

though I love your pink pumps and red dress

given a wide berth

Whack-a-Doodle cracked

high hand

walks up

forcing the fold

off on the platform

man up

each

and every

        blurry mind

nuts ain't going to cut it

he the Bedlam royal flush made Bellevue

come out

quick

wherever you are

Whack-a-Doodle

waits

the right

one

                        ready

express

push

come fast down

the line

beat the leaps and screams

ride the local

shake erratic flip and split

stay safe someone

said in a faraway memory

still treasured after the plunge

he who knows the way

stays out of the way

steps back

to enjoy the funk in the breeze

see the kid far gone

after the fall

toilet flushed alligators

from Florida vacations

find their way blind-eyed

from sewer to satiate haute

subterranean appetites

and I still have a pocket

full of tokens

of the time

and all God's children got soul thin shoes

for walking

all over God's heaven

and Whack-a-Doodle

came out

all wrong

and moves along

the chorus has got the jitters

ready to jump and whirl

to get out and on the way

I'm with Whack-a-Doodle

if Whack-a-Doodle ain't with me

and there's no worries

waiting

with Whack-a-Doodle

Saturday Night Subway train

come on

come out to play

see yourself as the one

the unscathed

even if everyone else is too scared

to say otherwise