GARY GLAUBER

GARY GLAUBER

ADMONITION

I will poison your vision

with the luxury of longing

& the arrogance of regret.

Even in the darkest places

I will have you pine for teacups

&civility immune to hindrance,

for a place that exists only in

recesses of damaged hearts,

working limited hours to

achieve this larger scheme’s

impossible actions, the deceptive

charade of Hollywood romance,

infecting hope with vertigo

&a restless churning of lust

because the very end reveals

an incendiary illusion

burning bone to dust

in the searing flames

of hot rampant desire,

a waking dream disturbed

leaving nothing but want.

MOONLESS & MOBILE

Head is off wandering

while heart wrestles fears

&legs dance to music

that propels & inspires

beyond dirty gutters

to states of deeper

understanding.

We are on the move.

Modern smells differ

from what attended

horses& heroes

of recent centuries.

Now we battle festering rot,

garbage that will not decompose,

reflecting our stubborn ways.

We are present,

if not accounted for.

Advanced chemical aerosols

cover olfactory annoyance,

destroying the atmosphere,

providing pretend aroma

to mask the sour,

the fetid, the real.

We are civilized & motile

in a world of restless abandon,

where speed is required,

racing against the melt,

the fickle stink of passing seasons,

the rage of advancing age.

DÉJÀ VU AGAIN

The soothsayer is a fool.

You only realize this now.

You’re decommissioned &

deconstructed, believing

history repeats like acid reflux.

Nothing gets left behind.

Still, you rue the day,

test its mettle, seize the Latin

phrase that warns smugly

of what conquers what and when.

You’ve heard it all before,

heard the sizzle of the cannonball

flying past the obvious, heading

straight for the metaphor,

the solar plexus of us. Fired.

The faucet drips incessantly,

reminding of time’s slow flood.

Tears gather, currents occur

&a gulf stream of comprehension

warms those who reminisce.

It’s another natural disaster,

footage for the evening news,

crushing & unexpected,

though by now there’s always

suspicion waylaying foundations.

The testimony sounds familiar:

sentencing without punctuation,

limited expressions to capture

a future where anything’s possible

but another false conclusion.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS

Avert your eyes

from my emotional scars;

let me sit & plan my past.

Life is revision, yet starker.

Truth once illuminated

shadow-filled corners.

Now a numbed populace

gets triggered by bots

in bouts of misplaced anger.

Tears spill out the corner

of an eye-patch, silent testament

to wrongness of silence.

Marauding murderers of credence

stand at podiums daily,

deflecting queries, answering none.

These are the pirates of our age,

having boarded our democracy

& hijacked stores of outrage.

When so much is wrong,

it is impossible to focus,

&every gangplank leads nowhere.

The Jolly Roger is jolly no more,

waving white flags instead

in eternal winds a-blowing.

Cold and clammy, we gaze

from this crow’s nest and wait

for salvation beyond this horizon.

A MATTER OF FOCUS

Grownups lectured

your problem is misguided perspective.

It’s not the television show that matters,

commercials are what drive the medium.

It’s not how fast or fleet the boxer may be,

it’s how well he deflects a jab,

recovers from what seems a glancing blow.

It’s not the bright colors in the middle,

but subtle shadows that lend paintings depth & life.

Someday, they muttered, you’ll change.

You’ll reach an age when practicality

&common sense will override

this predisposition for silly irreverence.

Time forges forward,

an unstoppable flow

that rushes ever faster

each ensuing year.

Yet pride is resistance,

defiance a benchmark

against what others see

as inevitability.

GARY GLAUBER

GARY GLAUBER is a poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist.  His works have received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. He champions the underdog to the melodic rhythms of obscure power pop. His two collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) and Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and a chapbook, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press), are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and directly from the publishers.