Author Description

These poems were (mostly) written and wept over in the late 1980s. It was an era of big hair and big confessions. Televangelists were everywhere, and I sought my elevation from crooked IS to everlasting EVERAFTER in the small words of poems. Looking back gives one all the thrill of always being wrong. There's hardly a single opinion to which I gave voice then, with which I am now still in consonance. Rereading these poems, I experience the hilarity my guardians must have experienced while tugging me back onto the sidewalk and away from the speedy traffic of life. Recorded here are the first adult gulps of world, and the final disrobements of childhood embarrasment. Big ideas, history, and the griefs of losing a beloved parent too soon all mix in the pickle juice of current events--a la 1989.I spent a lot of time in coffeehouses in Red Bank and at underground comedy clubs in NJ, as well as jumping up and down in punk enclaves painted black as a goth fan's eyelid. There wasn't much to it all, but it repeated and encapsulated the young dull days of millions.Gregg GloryMay 5, 2019MAY FIREIn Red Bank, painted red, the heatKills infants, sprawling at their mother's feet,Packing into Woolworth's for Easter flowersAnd rattling water pistols now on sale.At Reckless Place a barbecue begins,Matches flash and blacken on wet coal, near A gallon tin of gas, waiting to explode.The children hang like lilies from their necks;Open-mouthed, alive, they squab the mallIn summer cut-offs, roiling at the sightThat floats in marijuana spikes of colorOf Barbie's head of smiles ghosting the NavasinkIn dream apparel, while a plastic ChristBobs wished-for and haunted on black swells.In Red Bank, where a squall of heatsUnhouses God from a fitful sleepLike dozing Godzilla from the China Sea,And ferries hellish stenches noseward in fuming oilsAs far as Prowns, the paradeWhich vaulted Christ among us, an Olympic starBright and burning on chrysanthemums,Was over weeks ago. White as milk,The holy fa