Down the Local. Gary Glauber

It’s a startling display of wood and mirrors, both polished to

offer unsuspecting views of these other lonely wanderers

seeking comfort in the company of like-minded strangers,

a respite from tiny cramped lives of fearful concerns

working hard to achieve another meaningless goal

between happy hours and the eclectic selections on this

ancient jukebox, from Bad Company to Boston to Xanadu,

stuck in some 1970s existence when potential seemed promising

and locals were marrying off in droves to chase their own slice

of American heaven. Now there’s a smoky heaviness that reflects

the restless despair of disenchantment, the hardened scars

of a scripted reality that leaves no room for second chances,

hope remolded into tolerance, and rage refashioned into

sharing dysfunction in a way that reads as enlightened,

gathering strength from this collective need for relief. 

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 basks in his relative obscurity from the safe haven of the suburbs, but still crawls out now and again for a reading.  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.  A new collection is coming soon.