The Gronks

Bad teeth, bad tattoos, bad haircuts, bad people.

01/07/2019

…and here come the gronks

Some are missing teeth

Some have black teeth

And some have no teeth

One’s missing a pinky

One’s missing a thumb

One’s missing a soul

Some have unfinished tattoos

Some have misspelt tattoos

And some have tattoos that say

‘Fuck the Police’

They all have scars

Dirt bikes, car crashes

And the inevitable stab wounds

That come with the drug scene

One has a missus with multiple personalities

One has a missus who takes drugs while pregnant

And many fight with their girl

At the jail visits

Most are drug addicts

And many brag

Of million dollar arms

After years of expensive

Heroin habits

One or two have hearts of gold

But most you wouldn’t

Introduce to your family

Here come the gronks

This is my life

—

Before I got locked up I had only ever heard the word gronk once, in a dingy local skateboarding magazine. In jail I heard it daily and found myself saying and thinking it regularly. The literal definition is someone wearing jail clothes but mostly it’s just a run of the mill insult.

I stole the opening line from the Omar Musa book ‘and here come the dogs’. A local poet who is far more gifted than I and one of the better reads while locked up.

The million dollar arms stuff is disturbingly true, and one of the many reasons I never have and never will touch heroin.

I am reminded of the Orwell quote ‘You talk so often of going to the dogs –and well, here are the dogs and you have reached them’.

Bad teeth, bad tattoos, bad haircuts, bad people.