August 2024
Glen Armstrong
armstron@oakland.edu
armstron@oakland.edu
Bio Note: I hold an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edit a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. My poems have appeared in Conduit, Poetry Northwest, and Another Chicago Magazine.
Between Beats
If it wasn’t a ghost, it must have been me.
But why would I be murmuring cryptic
messages to myself, more weird than scary,
more garbled goodbye than demonic rant?
If it wasn’t a message, it must have been
a song, a bit of street corner wisdom
doled out between pitch pipe, tap shoe, and gong:
Time goes by so slowly here, so slowly
that the drummer has time between beats
for a manicure and a marriage.
The first verse seems like a lifetime ago.
Its hey nonny nonny made sense at the time.
And who keeps punching me with my own thought?
Stop haunting yourself, stop haunting yourself . . .
Retrograde
Summer returns,
and Saturn hasn't aged a day.
Astronauts eat sandwiches;
birds eat worms.
Overnight, the marquis changes.
I cannot endure this
constant joy, these gentle waves.
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