Tony Gloeggler

45 RPMS

ANGIE’S PIZZA after school.
The juke box scratches out
the Stones. We order two
slices, a large Coke. You
blow smoke rings in my ear,
leave pink lipstick on crushed
butts. I eat your crust,
finger pick guitar riffs,
sing “Ti-i-ime is on my side,
yes it is.” Angie yells,
“Shut the hell up back there.”
We get up, buy a lemon ice,
take turns licking it
slowly down Main Street.

ADIDAS & AUTISM

Jesse’s not happy, standing
at the door with one arm
in his coat sleeve, whining
about my ankle high, brown
boots that I hope will keep
my feet dry from the slush
covered ground instead
of the superstar adidas
I always wear. I explain
it’s wet outside, but he keeps
repeating white sneakers, black
stripes to show how upsetting
this is for him. I could share
the history behind my only
fashion statement to show,
like him, I totally prefer
things to remain the same,
the way I’ll find something
I love and cling to it, like
old girl friends I still miss,
how my feet evolved from PF
Flyers into low black Cons
until Timmy Flanagan, point
guard, high scorer of our sixth
grade basketball team flashed
those bright white, low riding,
leather shell tops for our season
opener. My father said no way
he’d pay $25.99 for sneakers.
Besides, I was a much better
baseball player, did I know
how much cleats cost? I nagged
mom until she asked Grandpa
for the money. At first they felt
heavy, kind of clunky and I seemed
a step slower filling the wings,
lifting off the ground for rebounds.
But after weeks of pounding
the asphalt all day, every day,
the bottoms grew lighter,
the leather molded around
my feet, fit like a second skin
and I became an antelope,
streaking down the court
and all the way up to today
walking around town in low,
shell top, bright white adidas,
wearing them to year end budget
meetings, fancy weddings, featured
poetry readings, mom’s and dad’s
funerals. But I know all Jesse
needs to hear is white sneakers,
black stripes, January 2025
and he’ll feel safe, believe
that everything will be back
the way it belongs my next
visit and we can walk through
that door, be on our merry way.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

Catching up with an hour long
phone call, I’d bet my friend
never thought he’d be racing
down the aisles of a boxstore
supermarket at 64 years old
filling orders for as many hours
as the boss would give him
before overtime. He’s looking
forward to September, Oregon’s
paid leave act becoming Law,
helping to pay for his hernia
operation, relieving the nausea
he’s learned to live with. We met
on a Long Island Expressway
overpass when I threatened
to snatch the yarmulke off
his head, frisbee it into traffic,
became friends on schoolyard
basketball courts, grew closer
through music, books, writing.
He opened my ears to Arlo,
Bruce Cockburn, JJ Cale, steered
me to Anne Sexton, the Beats
and read my early, crappy poems.
I introduced him to Jackson Bowne,
the later, jazzier Rascals, live Poco,
Rusty Young’s Evel Knievel pedal
steel playing. I wonder how much
he makes an hour? He spends twenty
minutes preaching about the rich
running the government, the Wells
Fargo crooks who fired him after
the scandal, the tent city he walks
by every morning, how rents keep
rising, flying beyond anyone’s reach
before he tells me the union settled
for eighteen dollars forty cents
an hour after only a one-day strike.
What about food stamps? Another
twenty minutes of political sermonizing
before he tells me it just got cut
to pre-pandemic levels, never
mentioning the amount while
I picture young Latino mothers,
baby strapped to their backs,
walking subway cars displaying
boxes like leftover cigarette
girls in old movie night clubs
trying to sell candy bars, packs
of gum, for a few dollars.

We exchange brief family bulletins,
tidbits about the handful of friends
I stay in touch with, the everyday
annoyance of getting old. He quotes
a Joe Henry song: time is a lion
and we are the lambs. He headed
out to Los Angeles after high
school thinking he had the next
big comedy TV pilot scribbled
in his spiral notebook even though
no one in the neighborhood ever
considered him funny, mostly
morose, too serious. First time
I visited he was living in a church
basement, caretaking the grounds,
presenting open poetry mics
while attending Berkeley, writing
award winning poems I never
understood, safely preserved
in a Gutenberg looking tome,
locked away in Moffett library.
Me and Erica spread sleeping
bags on the floor, fucked quietly
as we could. He asks about her
and I wish I had some answers.
He pauses before bringing up music,
any upcoming shows. I’m excited
about Springsteen, can’t wait to hear
songs from Ghosts live, Rickie Lee
doing jazz standards in a small club,
James McMurtry for my first time.
His stereo system’s broken, too
expensive to fix but he gets lost
on you tube and his boom box
still booms. He stopped receiving
free CDs, comp tickets when
the tiny zines he wrote reviews
and articles for folded. Saying
goodbye, he brings up money,
money he owes me from I forget
when. I want to say not to worry.
I got enough. Instead I keep
quiet, let him pretend to believe
he will one day pay me back
while I promise to send him
the extra Bose player I took
home from work when I retired
and a handful of mixed CDs
to get him up and running:
Melanie, Laura Nyro, Dion
to listen to when he misses NYC,
our younger days, Neko Case, Josh
Ritter, Waxahatchee, a liitle
newer to his ears to maybe keep
us from fading into an oldies act.

Tony Gloeggler is a life-long resident of NYC who managed group homes for the mentally challenged for over 40 years. His poems have appeared in Rattle, New Ohio Review, Raleigh Review, BODY, Gargoyle and Sho, His most recent collection, What Kind Of Man with NYQ Books, was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize and Here on Earth is forthcoming on NYQ Books.

“45 RPMS” first published in The Ledge

“Adidas & Autism” previously published in Panoply