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PUNK
Still howling at age
fifty-seven about sex, drugs,
and generation X alienation while I'm just
tidying up in the living room, buying cat food,
making babies, barbecuing, for god's sake.
I tell myself never get old but I don't believe
that any more. Damn, fifty-seven and still shouting
his lungs out loopy-high on god-knows-what
or maybe just on life.
Twenty-five years ago I
was just a kid
saying, gosh, I'll never get tired of this,
I promise! I held on until 30, ears stuffed with headphones,
screaming on the subway, believing everyone loved
my singing and there must be someone joining in.
Then suddenly I was
overcome by MP3 DVD
digital camera digital woman flick in a box on a lap in a plane
and the whole world blabbing on a cell phone
endlessly saying this is SO cool I often
thought all of 'em are nothing but punks,
punks I said just like old Frank Baldorini used to say
in his smelly backyard filled with beer cans,
chain-drinking Gennessee, yelling at his Chihuahuas
and the "punks" playing in the alley.
As if global warming or
the instant message weren't enough,
the Cadillac commercial starring Led Zepplin
came along and Iggy's doing Carnival Cruises—
I can barely forgive it yet I hang on
with white knuckles a few more years
sliding down like the Titanic ever deeper
into the depths of muzak until one day
I run across old Iggy still distilling
his private hell into vinyl or whatever crap
CDs are made from these days
and I suddenly think that maybe the world might survive,
death isn't just around the corner and I will live
a few more years even with these damn punks and their
cell phone chatter making it so hard to hear
all the things that really matter in this life.
SHINE
Above me, stars.
Stay firm below me, world
as I swim in porchlight,
a thousand miles from my usual state.
This is where all the crud of the world
just gets washed away,
as if by solar winds or high tide.
The Pleiades beckon
in their tiny swimsuits
and suddenly life just flows,
rubbery and smooth,
the usual bumps pass unfelt.
Just once, Big Dipper,
I say, shaking my fist, try this:
Create this peace,
hanging above the driveway
shining in the moonlight
like a yellow brick road
beneath Orion.
I feel like saying
something like, I love everyone,
universally, unconditionally,
I will give you anything you want.
Then Shantideva whispers
all the way from India,
and don't forget, a slave for all beings
who need a slave.
But as Hydra sinks into the midnight sea,
Cassiopeia just rolls her eyes
and says, come on, boy,
get back down to Earth.
I think there's someone calling for you…
Karl D. Gluck studied Russian language and literature in college and, for
the past ten years, Chinese has been his main hobby. He speaks both
languages fluently and works as a case manager in an organization that
helps new Russian and Chinese Americans to find work. He has a published
book of poems, Phantasmagoria, and has been published in several
magazines, among them Ignite, Rattapallax, The New Press, Open Mike: An
Albany Anthology and Skidrow Penthouse. |