GARY GLAUBER
DIRECTIONLESS DECADE
It was a precarious hell,
an age of fearmongerers,
terrible and simple.
Safety was not a prime concern,
and we all watched for signals,
ignoring the few caveats
and going with the flow.
Education was a useless concept,
and theorems proved nothing.
It was common and familiar,
a time of heightened desire.
Everyone talked about big ideas
and love and peace as solutions.
They roused rabble and raised tarnation,
traded spouses
and amplified the music
to the vibrant point of pain.
They sang of revolution
and emotions and change.
Yet in the end,
very little occurred.
Problems did not get solved
and ideals were sold
as hard capital.
In the end,
it was never quite as good
as people remembered it being,
and everyone was there.
We traveled to distant worlds
and back again,
and all we recall now is
a need for seat belts
and labeled warnings,
hearkened nods to nostalgia
while heeding the future’s
clarion collect call.
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 champions the underdog to the melodic rhythms of obscure power pop. His collection, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) is available through Amazon, as is a chapbook, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press).