Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Gauntlet

image borrowed from bing

The Gauntlet

Not long ago I wore
the gray mask of a wage slave,
and some early mornings alone
in my alley, fogging the chilled air
with my heated breath, watching it
drift gingerly past the single star visible
over my garage, often I could hear
the engine of a small plane hidden
in the low clouds, sputtering as
it searched for a landing strip;

before I habitually slipped red
through the pre-dawn indigo,
tingling with alacrity,
watching nervously in my mirrors
for those constabularial predators
who might,
who could,
who had sprung from concealment
snagging one of the stragglers of our group,
bullshit-bellicose, behaving
like silver-buckled sun-glassed
voracious lions
leaping onto our thin metal backs
with guns drawn,
and claws out;

but most of the time the herd was vast,
and others were pulled down
while I pushed on
eager for my servitude,
eager for the passage of years,
eager for the quiet hour at my desk
when the flop sweat
from my narrow escape
would transform itself
like a sensuous magi-bitch
into poetry.

Glenn Buttkus

April 2012

Posted over on Magpie Tales 114

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great comment you just left on my blog, Glenn. Before I read your poem, I just popped over to ask you if you'd have time to write for today's Sunday Whirl prompt; the words are great, and I know you'd have fun with them:

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/anniversary-wordle/

I'll post my Monday Melting words a little later tonight.

~Shawna
rosemarymint.wordpress.com

Brian Miller said...

well that sounds like quite the adventure...picking off the herd, there are def those predators that will..esp int he corp world...ha...interesting prgression in this one...i like the opening stanza it sets it up well...and hey there is poetry in everything right? smiles.

Anonymous said...

I love this section:

"before I habitually slipped red
through the pre-dawn indigo,
tingling with alacrity,
watching nervously in my mirrors
for those constabularial predators"

And this: "eager for my servitude"

But this, my friend, is hot:
"would transform itself
like a sensuous magi-bitch
into poetry"

rosemarymint.wordpress.com

Tess Kincaid said...

I take it your muse is a wild one...the last stanza is brilliant...

Lane Savant said...

Yeah, it's a fuckin' jungle out there