Too much bologna has me fried

The drunk next to me
     is eating a fried bologna
     like David Hasselhoff
     making love to a cheeseburger.

And I wish I could find
     a fraction of the joy in life
     that this man
     finds in a sandwich.

But it’s 3am Buffalo-time
     and in the humidity
     the lukewarm beer I’m drinking
     lies to me
     and tells me
     it’s still cold.
And that I’m still relevant.
And that life is good.
And that Buffalo will bounce back.

And the lie echoes
     through the empty downtown streets
And falls on the deaf ears of
     the exhausted liberty statues
     who face west towards progress
     and east towards decay.
And the lie becomes elevator music
     played by a senile philharmonic
     to an audience of dusty corpses.

And the lie whispers from our TV sets
     as soulless Stepford newscasters
     talk about sports scores
     and where to find a fucking fish fry.

And the lie is splashed over the city like blood
     on a grocery store floor
While politicians scrub their hands
     and their search engines
     like Lady MacBeth
     and offer thoughts and prayers
     and platitudes
     and ignorance.

But what do I know?
I’m just a drunk in a dive bar
     staring into a murky mirror,
     terrified by my own reflection,
     and eating a fried bologna
     like David Hasselhoff
     making love to a cheeseburger.

James Cichocki is a local theatre director, costume designer, award winning actor, and now, apparently, poet. They are the Executive Director of the Elmwood Village Association and lives with their senior rescue dog, Isabel.