GARY GLAUBER - POEMS

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 collection, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) is available through Amazon, as is a chapbook, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press). His newest collection, Worth the Candle, is now out from Five Oaks Press.  This past summer, he was one of the poets reading at the 2017 NYC Poetry Festival.

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You Know The Song
​

​Invention turned intervention.
Nights of silent screams & slow motion shadows.
This is not a game, she says.
 
Into the treacherous badlands,
playing with money, playing for keeps
until the time someone sets up rules.
 
Driven by the impressive bass line,
you rise to the call & response
like a perfect three-part harmony.
 
Even the Sphinx had an inkling
of the larger meaning behind it all.
You stretch & feign disinterest.
 
Science is an art here, math a simple fraction
of all your promised potential. You break
as though life had a solo to offer.
 
In the repeating chorus,
she begs you to think. 
Think about heartache.
 
You are called from your hiding place
into the heat of a radiating spotlight,
the world of the greater world.
 
The coda repeats & fades.
The backup singers express remorse.
You try to find a verse to save you.

Road Trips
​

​Driving across bleak trails
in search of the next big blaze,
comes the formulaic realization: 
paradise is a relative concept.
You & your theoretical mandates
hurt & misdirect, implying that
love & truth are atmospheric disturbances,
nothing more. 
Falling into these sad charades,
rhythms of sentiment twisted into forgiveness
& a lone inquiry echoed & unanswered,
it’s a familiar refrain, a reverie,
a static-filled station nearly out of range
& a haunting chorus.
As red taillights guide through this fog
to the ongoing illusion that progress follows,
we hold tight & accelerate,
trusting the unknown. 

Male Order
​

Peruse our catalogue of curious mementos, 
shells of shadows, quaint dreams turned to dust,
 
the soft wisp of a turtle’s breath, a pine cone,
a messenger’s abandoned pager, a deer’s tooth,
 
the quiet perfume of an autumn day,
the scent of leaves and ripe apples falling,
 
your favorite sweater from 1980,
the one with the inexplicable white stripe,
 
a chamberlain’s missive to a crier,
a sand bank full of youthful spirit,
 
the confidence of a first seat belt,
the cold heavy pleasure of a bucket
 
weighed down with soapy escapades,
a money-back guarantee for a small mirror,
 
one to show the truths of yesteryear,
tears of misunderstanding, the allure
 
of the neighbor’s freckled smile,
those promises called out without echo
 
lost in the canyons behind the reservoir,
like an approximation at humor. Order now
 
and get the bonus of a trampled heart,
before the personal wall was built,
 
back when love was a feasible concept,
when a million songs still were sung. 
 

Companionship
​

​Everything is broken.
Shards of expectation
prove dangerous when
culture surgically removes
familiar notions of native hope.
Barnacles of treacle-laced sentiment
enflame her pretend emotions
to a fevered state, filming the email
to create a stop-motion reminder
of the one time he used that phrase,
evidence of his collateral care,
a magnanimous dispersal of niceties
sent in nonchalant prose.
She wears her hair up,
exudes exotic effortless elegance
& knows what passes for love
in these faraway hallways
collapses under drawn curtains
of passing scrutiny.
She dreams of ancestors
dancing under summer waterfalls,
times when sincere smiles
were the only currency
that ever mattered.
Her mind plays over
desperate exit strategies,
searching for those
that offer respect, freedom from
clown-show anticipation,
this genetic predilection
toward coupling &
this horn of plenty troubles.

Ignoble Conceit
​

​The century of confusion & arrogance
makes things harder to comprehend.
Existence as excuse, undefined,
perpetually misunderstood,
streams on unabated. 
All the while you try
capturing moments,
grasping for epiphany
between lines of
prosaic rhetoric,
trivial pursuits
amidst tragic
stains of terror
crossing the map,
seeking your place
in the pantheon,
a taste at immortality
through marginal wisdom
& a love of language
that echoes & resounds
from a perch removed,
fostering an illusion of safety.
Does the sharing of the story
really matter? The passion
for the universal extends:
extenuate, ostentatious,
battling blank page.