Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Voice


image borrowed from bing

The Voice

Everywhere
dark in the void,
layered like ice crystals,
natal-wet and fecund,
squirming like larva,
planets are born
and die;

their interstellar coupling
ripping at the fabric of the universe,
yet, it is no more
than scarlet wind snakes
racing over red dunes,
near yellow oceans,
under green skies;

merely
silent concentric rings rippling
the tepid surface of those tiny puddles
in God’s eye.

Mortals toil
with the incarnate salt of their sweat
stained white on the worn leather
of their harnesses, bone-weary
beneath the bilious burdens they built
with their own hands,

straining against the terrible tethers,
shuffling along with a frisky time step,
flickering feckless in a flurry, until
they gnaw clear through the restraints--
hollering for liberty, sometimes dying
to insure their futile freedom,

running flat out, fleeing the police,
fearing the army, distrusting the politicians,
sprinting into the depths of a dream forest
that they imagine they are seeing
for the first time,

when something mysterious stops them
dead in their tracks, their lungs on fire,
eyes and fists clenched, gulping
the hot dust that settles on their pinched shoulders,

something,

something beautiful,
a voice,
soft, sonorous, sopranoic, calming,
in some penetrating perfect pitch
saying:

listen to the poetry of the planets,
open your heart to alien tongues
singing the sumptuous song of the swarm,

as the specter of Happiness,
taller than the trees, a golden monolith,
vibrating with a spectacular rainbow in its mouth,
swelled higher until it created a bubble
big enough to hold city states,

and the lesson learned was elementary,
happiness has a voice,

listen,
there,
and there,

can you hear it?


Glenn Buttkus

April 2012

Posted as #21 over at dVerse Poets-Open Link Night 39

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

10 comments:

Aaron Kent said...

Love it, what a wonderful poem and what great imagery it brings with it. Thank you for the brilliant write.

Brian Miller said...

merely
silent concentric rings rippling
the tepid surface of those tiny puddles
in God’s eye

that puts a little perspective on it, now doesnt it...

love too that in the midst of it all a song breaks through...listen to the poetry of the planets...i like g

a little old world sci fi in your voice as well...smiles.

Timoteo said...

HA! yeah.

Ginny Brannan said...

"Mortals toil
with the incarnate salt of their sweat
stained white on the worn leather
of their harnesses, bone-weary
beneath the bilious burdens they built
with their own hands,"

I love how you brought this from the birth of new worlds through the blindly obsessive toiling of man, leaving us with a final thought to open our hearts and minds to the music of the universe that surrounds us if we just "listen." Excellent!
Well penned!!

Tashtoo said...

PeI heard it! Fantastic!

Anonymous said...

"We are star stuff contemplating star stuff......" (Carl Sagan)

This is excellent -

merely
silent concentric rings rippling
the tepid surface of those tiny puddles
in G-d's eye.


What are those watery ripples in the sun's eye, the moon's face, the jewelbox of the sky, writhing embryos, writhing men, stars trailing blood, trackless cosmic flows

listen to the poetry of the planets,

Indeed.....

Semaphore said...

There is an underlying harmony to the planets, measured by their size and the balance of gravity, and that harmony is as delicate as the strictures on a sonnet. Excellent perspective!

Frank Watson said...

Feels almost like an Eastern philosophy of being connected to the universe. I had read and enjoyed your work before, but didn't realize just how prolific you are until I started looking through your archives. Amazing!

robkistner said...

Glenn - not only do I find this piece absolutely spellbinding, it may be my most favorite of your works with which I am familiar -- stellar stuff...!!! bravo...

Diane Caldwell said...

Finally this morning had the time and breath to read.
What a feral wild glorious poem!
thanks for sending it to me. Write on!
diane