Stars Are Numbered Like Pool Balls and Ghosts Rub Chalk On Their Cues (For John Grochalski) by John Doyle

Infinity is a fat-ass kid;

that is,

with nothingness surrounding it

more nothingness comes to fill it; hollow - yet everything, empty - yet all-consuming -

it’s quite a simple process,

 and all you do afterwards kid is send our souls the bill.

I think of Gods, and Devils,

folklore tales of wicked demons who look like deformed beasts - the bent-beaked crow,

the sow with the twisted head and bulging eyes,

and the purest hero who rode in to save the princess from their clutches,

I wept for them this morning, it beats the usual water-cooler talk,

hero, princess,

deformed and wicked beast,

like junk floating side by side in space,

waiting for another clump of nothingness to push them further and further away.


Shooting pool with Barry, it’s my last day here, I haven’t got the heart to tell him -

you see, he’s a working man just like me, splinters, emphysema, the usual shit.

Well, anyways, Barry’s trick-shots today sent the Earth spinning out of orbit,

his adjutant McRory

(a snake who rats on me to senior management over emails at lunch

while I sit right beside her) fills up spaces eternity sometimes leases out

when Gods and Devils and fat-kids look the other way - though from behind her desk

she doesn’t flinch when she’s sees Gods and Devils scowling. Fancy that.


I believe in all honesty she’s some kind of witch,

I believe different shades of darkness are at work this time,

as the fat-kid checks out

and his mom and pop send a cadillac to collect him,

and Barry sinks another galaxy, and McRory turns to me

and smiles, it’s the first she’s called me by my name,

but she has no eyes, no face, there’s nothing there, just a 1990s grunge shirt sticking out,

some Caterpillar boots and traces of scowl in the crooked cuts of bone -

the cobweb face of looming death.

I note this - my final diary entry - with a possible explanation -



she may be just another devil muscling-in from the west-side,

I know they’re expanding their operations, filling darkness with itself,

until even the cue-ball turns itself black,

McRory will soon consume Barry, mating first -

then a  ritual feast - (I note further) and his pool cue will make that hollow clinking noise hitting

the floor with nothing holding it. This time it really will be nothing,

so come feast, ye Gods and Devils. I’ll switch off the lights and leave the doors un-locked

About John Doyle:

John Doyle is at present watching Rocky V and wondering why he could have been at such a loose-end to be reduced to this, I mean, seriously... 

He accepts all major credit cards, but will start dancing a whole lot sooner if you just point a gun at his feet and fire at will.