Excellent poem by Gary Glauber “…a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog while negotiating life’s absurdities. He has three collections — Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit) — as well as 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. Another collection, A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing). is forthcoming soon.”
Once Upon a Time in Detroit
by Gary Glauber
At 24, I took invincibility in stride,
drunk and still driving a rental car at midnight
into a town I’d never been to before,
heading the sixty miles I needed to cover
in record time and never once worrying about it.
Pointing the sedan in the right direction,
I ate up that random highway’s asphalt miles
like I had been to the feted Motor City
a hundred adventurous times before.
I was driving American, feeling every inch
a patriot of horsepower privilege, a Mitch Ryder song
appropriately blaring from the car’s radio.
I was to be shown how nice this town
with the less-than-stellar rep
could actually be. The gray-haired
officials in their fancy tailored suits
showed up to ensure me major improvements
were currently in the offing.
The impeccable politicians included me
like some wealthy insider, privy to their racist,
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