Gary Glauber

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He has five collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit), A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing) and most recently, Inside Outrage (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), a current Medal Provocateur Finalist. He also has two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize.

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Woke

You lie on your side
so that the snoring subsides.
But the social anxiety proliferates.

The strife of the world
weighs heavily on your soul.
But you try hard not to scroll.

And the bluescreen in your mind
leaves illuminated shadows
in terrifying outlines of shapes.

The robber barons never had
such palpable apprehension.
Their worries were pretty and petty.

Tonight, they’ll landscape your mind
by grafting fortunes onto promises
in a fallow field of constant reassessment.

Harvest your hopes upon worries.
Feed your fears with faux news.
Listen to your headache’s heartbeat.

For that ticking in your brain
could be a resurfaced cicada,
or another short-fused explosive.

Wide-eyed in the wee hours,
you watch the numbers toss and turn
within this short-sheeted market.

Buy low, sell high, hold fast
to your bucking bronco pillow.
Spur on in angst and ride this out.

But still no dreams will save you.