Such Tiny Ambitions
The bro-culture, podcasting,
manosphere spent years
raging about cancel culture,
beating their chests,
swearing all they wanted
was free speech,
the ability to be authentic
without woke inquisitors
breathing down their necks.
They spoke of masculine preemption
the way some speak of rigged elections:
with conviction
and little evidence.
Every microphone became a pulpit.
Every grievance a manifesto.
Every inconvenience
arrived dressed as tyranny.
They begged to be left alone
while demanding open discourse.
They wrapped themselves in the language
of liberty,
of courage,
of dangerous ideas.
Then the curtain twitched.
The lights came up.
And there they were:
not defending a grand ideal,
not standing guard over expression,
but celebrating the long-awaited permission
to say pussy,
faggot,
and retard.
without being called assholes.
They called it freedom.
Turns out they meant freedom
from embarrassment.
Such tiny ambitions
for such grand rhetoric.
Greg Clary is Professor Emeritus of Rehabilitation and Human Services at Clarion University. He was born and raised in southern West Virginia, and has lived most of his life in the “Pennsylvania Wilds” of northwestern Pennsylvania.
His photographs have appeared in The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Rattle, Untelling, About Place, Tiny Seed, Hole in the Head Review, The Watershed Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Appalachian Lit, Change Seven, Fourth River, The Bridge Literary Journal, among many others.
His poetry and writing have been published in Northern Appalachian Review, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Untelling, The Literary Underground, Chiron Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Waccamaw Journal, Rye Whiskey Review, Rust Belt Review, Clinch, Tobeco, Trailer Park Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, and many others.
His book of poetry, Before the Cup Runs Cold, will be released by Roadside Press in Summer 2027
