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.
Yeahi
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
You hold our interest by telling like it is, Christo. Have a wonderful day, man.
Art
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you kindly brother, stuff like this keeps me motivated on many levels. All the best
LikeLike