Glenn Werner

Spartacus

Laid off by Big Blue.
Now he works tech support
for some upstart competitor.
Brings change for a candy bar.
Lunch is a sandwich in Saran,
washed down with company coffee.
Drives home in the last
of his severance package.
Pulls into the garage,
Pushes a box of old circuit boards
under the workbench,
remembers how Gates started.
Goes inside to watch T.V.
Dreams of a raft on the Mediterranean.


Base Board Nail

Half its head breaks the surface
odd angles pock the clean colonial trim.
I've tapped it in and puttied over twice.
In winter storms and August saunas
cracks its face out, pushes
through painted-over paint.
Either I use a punch to bury it deep
or a pry to gouge it out with a screech.
I have to decide which way to mar the wood.


Awaiting Cremation

Her nose looks least like her,
more the shell of a young bird’s beak
pressed beneath the elastic bladder
of her skin, bent on escape.

The shear flesh melts,
eyelids seem to tear, her mask swept
like an astronaut’s, blasted back
screaming up to space.

Dry lips, parted, bewildered
by the loss of words,
secrets, lessons, histories
I need to hear.


About the Author

Glenn Werner is a poet. Some of his work has been published in the print journals 4th Street, Snow Monkey, and the upcoming Art & Story, on the web at Half Moon Review (www.halfmoonreview.com/contents/werner.html), and Jocundity (www.jocundity.com/page7.html). He is an artist. Some of his work can be seen on the online journals Avatar Review (3.avatarreview.com:8081/Issue3/stories/storyReader$142) and Literary Salt (www.literarysalt.com/issue2.2002/visual_gw.html), the web site Tin Foil Hat (home1.gte.net/prloudon/) and his own site Mongrel Poet (www.mongrelpoet.com).  He is a native of Ozone Park, votes in Pine Bush, but his heart remains under floor boards near 8th Street and MacDougal.

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