by Gary Glauber

The unnecessary solo toward song’s end
feels like a chapter out of place,
distinctive and echoing back upon itself,
hurried before time collapses.

The days repeat and lose meaning,
waiting out wishes granted, the promise
of past worlds dreamed, as unique
universes unfold in daunting ways.

It’s all compiled in a gray anthology,
the basics of the modern,
rudiments of how things really are
before they grow in complication:

Categorized into stages, phases,
the shifting eras of an education,
flowing into careers and willful efforts.
All memories now, marked as mediocre.

Waiting for the light to turn, the days
lengthen to announce the seasonal change.
Expectation and revelation battle as ideas,
distinguished in solitary disappointment.

Finally, mesmerized by the ordinary,
it’s a long breath bordered by silence.
This lingering all-time vision, that
pinions experience softly into place
and forms an idea called life.

Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, and teacher. He grew up in Yonkers, NY, not far from where Willy Loman stopped for a cup of coffee. His work has received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. In 2013, he took part in Found Poetry Review’s Pulitzer Remix project. He has been widely published. New work is forthcoming in Fjords Review, Agave Magazine, Ozone Park Journal, JMWW, Stone Voices, Noctua Review, Dirty Chai, Poemeleon, Thin Air Magazine, Meat for Tea, and Deep Water Literary Journal.