Dumbass Cops by John Grochalski

dumbass cops

ride up and down suburban developments

looking for trouble

dumbass cops

are trying to catch teens smoking weed

or shooting heroin

dumbass cops

have never seen a rental car

in this neighborhood

or maybe even a car with out of state plates

out of state plates

are always suspicious to dumbass cops

out of state plates mean trouble

for dumbass cops

who have watched too many

dumbass cop shows

dumbass cops check their dumbass reflections

in their dumbass mirrors

then they put their doughnuts away

and turn on their dumbass police lights

to chase a car three blocks

before pulling someone over

just to check out their i.d.'s

and then letting them go

because dumbass cops

don’t have anything better to do right now

they already shot their quota

of young black men for the week

and have to cool their jets and sit there

like the dumbasses they are

waiting on something else.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.