Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, teacher, and music journalist.   His works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as “Best of the Net.”   He took part in The Frost Place ’s conference on teaching poetry.    Recent poems are published or forthcoming in The Compass Rose, The Fine Line, Front Porch Review, Kitchen, The Single Hound, Manor House Quarterly, The Ghazal Page, The Whistling Fire, Xenith, The Newtowner, Red Poppy Review, Midwest Literary Magazine and StepAway Magazine.

Two Poems (January 20, 2012. Issue 34.)

Night Ride

Sometimes there's no choice but to surrender
to ruling passions, the emotional turbulence
that courses through the soul in a crazy tarantella
that spins and flies in the face of all patient logic.
Let the beating of black wings commence, allow
the dark shadows to stretch beyond the moonlight's
reach, through the coyote pack's frightening wails,
into the yellow realm of reckless judgments, and
the pale blue of wistful conquests remembered.
It is anger that moves fast, a chemical imbalance
in the inner canyons of the cranium, neurons
that spark and burn, a heat lightning that cracks
a restless summer sky, singing and singeing,
a taste of ozone in the air, but no victims claimed.
Cage those afflicted, wait for the jungle storm to pass,
find refuge in the seasoned plains of reason. There's
hope that veils are lifted soon, as moods come full circle
and this border battle ends - no apologies or regrets,
only things that pass unspoken, broken into flags
of hidden colors and again, all-knowing smiles.

Theory of Flight

He says flying's never the issue,
it's landing that's a problem.

That's not flying, it's falling, she points out.
I'm falling for you, he says in response.

She looks down into the deep chasm
of the dusty canyon in front of them,

imagining how this turns out
when that landing finally occurs.