My Pal Palmer

Borrowed from Doug Palmer's Facebook album

my pal palmer

in response to his poem, "recyle bin"

"this" is your life, swirling like
hornets in your convulsions,
like trying to sleep in grand
central station during the
height of the commute, like
playing jacks on the freeway,
like putting peanut butter on
the roof of your dog's mouth,
syntaxical explosions snapping
like those damn machines in
the matrix, minus Keanu and
decent CGI, like Kerouac being
buggered by Burroughs, like
Bukowski reading Shakespeare,
like a Buttkus poem read by
him and heard by no one,
and I cannot say I love it, though
your intellectual shiftings are
impressive, and I liked the canals
and avenues of light that meandered
through the maze of yesterdays,
only to discover there was nothing
holding together what you perceived
as your self, empty space with a
nucleus the size of a chickpea,
hoping that what you house in
your cranium is yours, and not some
gelatinous conglomerate gathered from
other gardens, other gazes, other families,
for you are not certain about the veil of
forgetfulness, this incarnation in lesson,
this career of broken knuckles and greasy
fingernails, this forge hand built, this
violin, flute, ukulele, automobile,
and amphibious car all hand built, all
pining for the touch of your fingers, and
the direction of your mandates, for they
and everything else you see in your pants
in the darkness of your closet, in the middle
of your nightmare, under your pillow, in
your boots, shaken out like an errant
scorpion, swatted like a fruit fly,
are yours, are you; like it or not, and
perhaps it is too late to redesign the
model that you have become, outdated,
old fashioned, hard to fathom, harder
to know or understand, yet I have
and I do, and have done, and will
continue to do, because you were
my hero when I was 15 and I probably
never got over it.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2011

Would you like the Author to read this poem to you?