Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Gary Beck

Peculiar Days

As society decays

each day

the crimes grow stranger,

more bizarre,

increasingly violent,

until there are few answers

that make sense

to those of us

in search of reason.

Cooling Time

Summer has ended.

The rays of warmth

trickle away

as cooling autumn

heralds the chill

eager to touch old bones.

The elderly begin to shiver

fearful they will not see

another warming dawn.

The diseased, demented, despairing,

too riddled with nightmares

to search for security,

too tortured by demons

to seek comforts,

the changing of season

driving the fragile

to paths of surrender.

Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 3 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions (Winter Goose Publishing). Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) and Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). Call to Valor will be published by Gnome on Pigs Productions and Acts of Defiance will be published by Dreaming Big Publications. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.