Lonely at the Top

I climbed to the top of the world.

The Statue of Liberty has secret stairs.

They go right up to the torch

and narrow as you go.

Only one person can touch the torch

and see the paint-brush truth of its distant splendor.

At the top,

there is nowhere else to go.

A child might climb on the torch itself.

The adult sees only danger;

where the steps end so do I.

Carefully, I turn around,

Survey all beneath me:

the island and harbor,

the tiny people and Fisher-Price buildings,

Like the toys I had when I was small:

I am their God.

But what can a God do but stare

and be stared at with moribund reverence?

I am above it all.

When I was a child,

I could touch my toys,

move them around.

I can do so no longer,

nor can I swim in the harbor

or walk the land,

so I look up.

The twinkling lights,

New worlds to dominate,

transform, the last chance

for a god to matter.

I must come down

backwards, the way I came,

careful not to trample or be trampled

by those I have passed along the way.

What Standing Up to Tyranny Looks Like

Crowded beach.

Party for all.

Group of hooligans crash

with big guns and armbands.

They laugh loud and announce

they will shoot their guns over the sea,

disrupt the quiet, peaceful brunch

with their monotone supremacy.

Our general jogs over,

with no uniform or rank,

just a sleeveless jacket

and quiet, personal energy

to tell them they are welcome,

but their threats are not.

He cannot arrest them, they know,

or force them to leave.

Alone, he tries to keep the peace

with young men who desire to end it.

He jogs off, getting in the last word,

for all that words matter.

The hooligans proceed to fire

their munitions, pollute

the air and sea

and laugh and laugh.

If a Certain Politician Has His Way

The loss of income

and transportation

is not as bad

as the loss of purpose.

That’s why I’m excited

when the library accepts

my offer to volunteer.

They tell me to come in on Monday

to fill out the paperwork.

Then on Tuesday a van

will escort me to the job site

to see how things work out.

I can’t wait to dive in,

to stack books or paint walls,

whatever they ask of me.

I go in a few days early

to check the place out

and park my bike in the hall

as there are no bike stands outside,

an antiquated convenience

no longer needed in a nation

of super rich and unseen poor.

I stroll into the lobby

and ask a librarian

if I can leave my bike where it is.

She goes with me and sees

the bike is quite large—an obstruction,

she labels it, even though the hallway

is wide. She assists me,

as librarians do, in finding

a more suitable location

in a building undesigned

for the likes of me.

Solidarity

Lunch in these perilous times

is risky. Still we meet,

hash our plans in silent rebellion

over broth and cheap tea,

the three of us with nothing in common

but our vision.

The overlords catch on.

They choose to punish me, the traitor

to their class. They grab my body

with their invisible force and raise me

toward their searing white light.

A pair of hands grab my leg.

Tentacles envelop the other.

My co-conspirators reveal themselves,

refusing to let me go,

refusing to obey,

suspending me in the air.

The overlords, not known for giving up,

relinquish their light. I fall to the café floor.

An unseen voice tells us we will pay.

We know. We already have paid 

with a thousand percent interest.

Greg Gildersleeve lives in the Kansas City area where he teaches college courses in composition, technical writing, and creative writing. He authored two Young Adult novels, The Power Club (2017) and The Secret Club (2020), and a novella, False Alarm (2015). His work has appeared in newsletters The Teaching Professor and Faculty Focus. He won the Publication Award of Johnson County Community College, Overland Park KS.