Sample poems by Michael S. Glaser
The Economy of Days
To want, to have, to do-the verbs I live
in perpetual unrest.
How difficult to be-to embrace the homely
details of my days
to open my heart
to the flow
of this amphibious life,
to trust in the motion toward
as a fish trusts
the river at its gills,
to trust in this journey,
to swim,
to be still.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------None of It
None of it will ever be finished,
why do you act as if it will?
as if you could change that singular,
eternal truth when each day
the sun or the wind or your neighbor
or that stranger you are passing right now
is calling, like the sweetest child,
"Come! Come out and play, O.K?"
Look: Do you see the teeter-totter?
the swings? The jungle gym you can climb
so high you will imagine you really can
touch the sky….
None of it will ever be finished.
Why do you act as if it will?
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Noise
“The unexamined life has always been in style.
Only recently has it become mandatory for enlightened people.”
…Robert J. McShea
And I’m thinking about noise and distractions and Blackberries and
satellites and cell phones and i-pods and wireless networks and microwaves
cris-crossing the universe and flat screen HD TVs and pundits and politicians
and wires in the ears of half the people I pass, and surround sound and IMAX
and i-Pads, and Wi-Fi and App after App after App and lap tops and the
screech of the subway, the honking of traffic, and MP3 audio players in our
automobiles so that sound can go on and on and on with hardly a hesitation, so
that the silence we fear need never really enter here, so that whatever thoughts
might sneak in need not be endured, so that no errant path will take us
somewhere surprising and unexpected, or remind us of that quiet
wherein we might hear something
perilous and sacred
whispering.
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What the Ocean Knows
The ocean knows that
we are choosing not to know.
We speak to her in the old vocabulary
of waves dancing to the shore,
the tide weaving its way, in and out
white caps sparkling in the sunlight
--the romance of our own reflections.
Might we learn to see ourselves
in her struggle to survive?
Will we ever learn to hear
her angry-mother cries?
Michael S. Glaser
The Emergency Behind Me
I drive north and in the south bound lane
an emergency vehicle streaks by,
its light flashing, its siren pulsing.
When I drive south,
the same thing happens
in the north-bound lane.
This uncomfortable sense
of schadenfreude,
haunts me.
What if I had been
just a little behind
where I am?
I live my days this way,
wondering about “there but for the grace of god,”
and thinking about luck and circumstance.
There is no satisfying explanation,
though I drive through it daily —
North bound or south.
It burdens me,
whenever, wherever
it is I think I am going.
Michael S. Glaser