5.3. Gary Glauber: 4 poems

We were the Sun

The musty basement couch was an ugly brown

and the fluorescent lighting poor at best,

but teenage romance adapts to any surroundings.

Tales from Topographic Oceans served as odd choice

for background music, the bells and tinkling percussion

did not suggest love, per se, but hours were spent

listening to repeated plays, kissing until mouths were

sore, groping to explore places that could never

be touched in public. There was passion and innocence,

the two an odd but memorable pairing, even now,

so many decades later. And the irony is that when

the song “Ritual” played its familiar refrain,

“Nous sommes du soleil /we love when we play,”

we were in fact playing at love.

Solo at Midnight

She’s never around

when the lava lamps bubble up

and he’s ready for battle,

plugged in, making vibration

an integral part of the sound.

As that clock counts down to zero,

he plays another ironic solo,

furiously shredding,

a showering crescendo of notes.

The band-a-thon runs long this year,

twelve bands covering a wide realm

of adolescent angst and rage.

Each millisecond’s song

says, “Listen to my heart.”

His says, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Postcard from the Old Man’s Barn

Can’t take another mention

of the phoebes living in the mailbox,

or the errant few in the rafters above.

The table’s full of antique farm implements

from when the white-haired gent policed the premises.

He was an uneasy man who liked to work alone,

a craftsmen of words, seeking perfection and a legacy;

most agree he achieved both. And now we come here

to appreciate the rousing views of the nearby mountains,

seeking his ghost’s inspiration and guidance

in hopeful sighs hence,

that whatever roads taken (or not) today

might still make a difference overall.

Party Animal

On the shoulders of influence,

your doppelganger stands proudly,

shaking hands, bantering with no hesitation,

braying bon mots that regale eager listeners.

Your old reputation for placid timidity

is promptly disposed, and laid to rest quickly

by this didymous functionary’s mastery

of you, the gestures, the implications,

the idiosyncrasies that comprise and define,

the je ne sais quoi of quixotic whimsy

that charms and delights all takers.

Yet you are more shocked than grateful,

seeing yourself from above, a stranger

plied by alcohol’s magic, working the room

like a visiting hypnotist, reciting short

incantations that may never work on the morrow,

leaving expectations bound to disappoint

come the harsh light of dawn and beyond.

About:

Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, teacher, and music journalist. One of his works was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, another was named “A Notable Online Story” by StorySouth’s Million Writers Award panel. He took part in The Frost Place’s conference on teaching poetry. His work has appeared in 42 Opus, Hobart, Word Riot, Pindeldyboz, Smokelong Quarterly, and elsewhere. Some of his poems will be appearing in upcoming issues of The Compass Rose and StepAway Magazine.