Friday, August 31, 2012

Dionysus



image borrowed from bing


Dionysus

Where
do dreams take us?

Why
do themes emerge
consistently after a time?

How
many times can I find myself
back in the Navy, or cast
in some nameless play?

How
often must I run naked
through train stations or
4th of July picnics?

Why
am I so comfortable
in specific jobs
and familiar residences?


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted on G-Man's Flash 55

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Sardonicus



image by jonas fornerod


Sardonicus


Most of my dreams are inhabited by a struggling man,
who finds himself lost in a strange large bustling city
where no one offers a map or is willing to help.

But being lost seems comfortable--he doesn’t expect help
because there is always something familiar about that city
and he senses he can be a resourceful independent man.

So he walks or drives all around the streets of the dark city,
and somehow finds his destination without the aid of help,
becoming a cousin to smug, the sardonic smiling man;

for a man must help himself, regardless of the city.


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted over at dVerse Poets #FFA

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Monday, August 27, 2012

Hysteria



image borrowed from bing

Hysteria

Abused and scorned by her husband,
Ruth, laden with needs unfulfilled,
sought out the randy imp, dropping
four golden shekels into his cedar box,
and stretched out on his velvet divan,
taking only two bites of the root candy 
before becoming overwhelmed
with blissful heat and satyric need,
captive of the deliriant hallucinogenic, 

happily allowing the mandragora to climb up
onto her hips, stroking her 
with his hands and tongue
past the chrysolite gem in her navel,
sliding beyond her thin waist
to stop teasingly at the pocket of her sweetness,
beneath the silken cluster of her dewey fur,
golden as sunlit wheat chaff,
dousing the pink pliable labia with scented oils,
washing away the veneer of fear and doubt;

soon arousing her carnal appetites,
he rode the shivering undulations
that emerged as he began to massage
her clitoris, frantic-heaving lustful-arching
as her womanhood craved contentment
and just as the orgasmic fury peaked

she was envisioning the humungous creature
of living energy, the Mandragora Helix,
that could snare electromagnetic fields
and jerk the earth slightly off its axis
and then let it snap back into balance
just to demonstrate its cosmic prowess;

she rose majestically from the perfumed pillows,
shook out the tangles from her tresses,
smoothed out her skirts, and then
bowed low with both hands brushing
the beautiful carpet before making
her sweeping exit, pausing only to scoop
up a handful of chocolate raisins
from a crystal goblet by the door,
leaving unescorted and smiling. 


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012


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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Yang Without Yin



painting by Borg de Nobel

Yang Without Yin


Every living creature on earth dies alone.”
--Roberta Sparrow


hey, big guy, yeah you
with those ridiculous long white ears,
Jesus, you must be over six feet tall,

and you have fresh blood on your neck fur
and dried blood on your little pink mouth,
twitching your whiskers and staring kindly
at me here in the dVerse Poet’s Pub, but

behind you in the huge bar mirror,
your actual visage resides,
ghoulish, monstrous, demonic, evil,
like that friend of Donnie Darko’s, Frank;

Donnie: Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?
Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Christ on a crutch, this is not the gentle Harvey
having a couple of beers with Elwood, hell no,
this is Frank, the lepus leper, the mirage,
the grand manipulator, Time’s muckraker,
Beezelbub’s berserker, saying 
between jagged broken teeth
with his red eyes shining:

“28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds--that is
when the world ends.”

As they drove around in that aimless convertible,
they began to ask:
Is time travel simply an act of God?
Are extraterrestrials the real angels?
Do we really want to have the answers
to the big gnawing question, why are we here?

Q: Does anyone know who Graham Greene is?
A1: Come on, we have all seen Pa Cartwright on TV.
A2: Yeah, the Indian dude who played Kicking Bird in 
DANCES WITH WOLVES.
A3: Some British jerk who wrote the screenplay for a movie
Richard Burton was in. 

If we never had accepted the veil of forgetfulness,
if we knew our actual destiny, could see it clearly,
might we choose to betray it?

Frank: I tell you a storm is coming, and it will swallow
all the children.

But young Donnie tuned out the rabbit prophesies
and listened only to his father:

“Don’t listen to them, son. They are all part of this great
big conspiracy of bullshit.”

So Donnie Darko disregarded the prattling 
of long-eared soothe-sayers and just went home
completely exhausted, pockets empty of answers,
and flopped onto his kid-sized bed 
with its Hopalong Cassidy bedspread, 
and immediately

began to dream about that broken off jet engine
hovering at 30,000 feet above his room, watching
it fall, fall, falling like a radio-controlled drone
directly toward his pillow,

as he finally saw the great serpent
preparing to eat its own tail.


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted over at dVerse Poets-Poetics

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Friday, August 24, 2012

The Greatest Country in the World



image borrowed from bing


The Greatest Country in the World

There is absolutely no evidence
to support the statement the we’re
“the greatest country in the world.”

We are seventh in literacy,
27th in Math,
22nd in Science, 
49th in life expectancy,
178th in infant mortality,
third in median household income,
fourth in labor force,
and number four in exports.

We lead the world in only three categories:
Number of incarcerated citizens per capita,
number of adults who believe angels are real,
and defense spending where we spend
more than the next 26 countries combined.

So,
when you ask me what makes us
the greatest country in the world,
I don’t know what the fuck
you’re talking about.


Aaron Sorkin

Speech delivered by Jeff Daniels
from the premiere of HBO series
THE NEWSROOM. 

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After Babel



image borrowed from bing


After Babel 

Words
decorate our lives
like ever-blooming flowers;

some bursting with sunlight,
others poking their oil-soaked petals
out of bayous;

some so holy they are only uttered
by anointed practitioners,
others smeared in blood
on middle eastern walls;

some that stimulate eros,
others that damn us to perdition--

but they all serve us well.


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012



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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Pugilist



image borrowed from bing


Pugilist

Bruno started boxing
when he was eight years old,
the red leather gloves huge on his small fists,
and he loved it.

His
   father
        hung
             up
               the
                 heavy
                       bag
                            in
                              the
                                  garage,
with the speed bag by the door.
                                              He
                                    punched
                                        deep
                                       into
                                     the
                             sinews
                                  of
                              that
                    massive
                  canvas
                bag,
his head barely touching its midriff.

He had to stand on an apple box
to swat the speedo,
slapping it into a blur,
fast and hard, nearly
tearing it off its springs.

He and the big bag became intimate,
his jabs snapping sharp into the sweaty folds
of the faceless porous partner,
his uppercuts pummeling every stitch,
smacking the stuffing loudly, thudding
as his terrible right and left hooks
tore at the texture of bag and glove,
training like his life depended on it,
night and day the grunting
and pounding rang out clarion
from the rough hewn garage gym.

Then his father bought him 
some free weights,
a sit up board and press bench.
The young man’s muscles rippled with joy,
growing, thickening, pumping up.

First featherweight
then lightweight,
then middleweight
becoming a strong light heavy,
battling his way up through the rings at
the Boys Club, YMCA, high school, then college. 

He fought like a physicist,
never with blood lust,
mostly knocking his opponents down
and winning by points,
but several times the adversaries
stayed down for the knockout call
rather than face his fists again;

but he was proud to be a boxer,
not a mauler,
not a braggart,
never arrogant or mean;
he did not hate the men he faced,
he just loved to box;

there were a few times he fought to a draw
hardly recognizing his own swollen features
in the mirror the next morning.

He really only lost once,
to a Hispanic
who failed to acknowledge pain,
who fought in the streets daily
without gloves;
somehow this had enraged Bruno
and he had unleashed punches
that broke ribs and bruised bone,
leaving the other man covered in blood,
yet the fighter battled like a bull dog
and refused to go down,
winning by points.

Bruno never was the same after that,
as the youthful joy was replaced
with sadness, and the mindless behemoths
he faced began to break apart his dreams,
punching beyond his body, injuring his soul,
until he rose one hot August morning
and he embraced his epiphany,
listening at last to his higher self:

“Fight no more forever, for you are worthy of something finer.”

Somehow he found the strength to walk away,
setting aside who he had been,
putting away his gloves, trophies, headgear,
allowing the rope burns to heal,
saying adieu to the ring, to the crowds, 
letting the heavy bag hang dry, kissed by dust,
forcing the speed bag into silence,
as he unclenched his fists

and became a scholar, a lover, a poet
and a father himself, who only pulled
out his scrapbook of press clippings
when begged to do so by his three sons.


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Monday, August 20, 2012

In Vagrantus Veritas



image borrowed from bing


In Vagrantus Veritas 


He awakened at first light
as a commuter train rumbled by
on a parallel bridge, and found himself
distracted by the strong fresh oder of feces--
Christ, Billy had taken a shit near his head this morning,
then packed up and boogied, heading for the Mission.

He was lying alone on a steep slant of the riverbank,
knuckles deep into the urine-soaked soft dirt under
the bridge, listening to the river making soft 
gurgling noises as it slipped under the
great green girders above him, while
traffic busily pounded and slapped
the bridge deck.

The sun broke through dozens of steel meshed rectangles 
creating a squadron of morning rays that lined up in 
close order like reluctant soldiers clear across the 
wide lethargic gray ripples

as he sat up and stretched, unclasping his filthy pea coat,
the last remnant of his service to his country. He had a
penchant for real wool, for it could capture the true 
essence of the person wearing it, sweetening
the sweat, breathing as he did. 

He reached deep into a shirt pocket and pulled out a yellowed
photograph, unfolding it carefully in his dirty fingers and 
stared at the image of his ex-wife, in her red bikini, 
sitting seductively on a cushioned swing 
on the deck of the house he once owned 
while inhabiting a fake utopian daydream 
that would morph into a dystopian nightmare;

becoming the person in rags he presently resided within--
dysfunctional, divorced, desperate, masterless,
jobless, homeless and hungry, a mock
menace to society, a fringe dweller.

“Good morning, Esther,” 

he hoarsely whispered into the hot wind,
habitually embracing his quaint custom
of greeting his past as if it could hear
him, as if someone, somewhere
cared.

“What’s for breakfast?” 

he inquired while rolling up his tattered tarter sleeping bag,
and tying it onto the top of his slashed up back pack, 
then walking to the edge of the thick vegetation 
growing on both sides of the bridge, he urinated 
on some blackberry vines that had been heavy 
with gray-brown dust, looking like dead 
herbarium residents, smiling
as their true green complexions appeared
in the steaming puddles of piss.

“No, honey, you just sleep some more. 
I will fix my own breakfast.”

He fished around in the bulging pack and extracted a kid-sized
red box of raisins, and stuffed it into one of his unbuttoned
shirt pockets while pounding the bridge powder off
his clothes, then swung his heavy pack onto his
broad shoulders and walked stiffly out into the
brightness, squinting into the feral face
of that day’s potential. 


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted first over at flipside records
Posted as well over at dVerse Poets OLN58

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Saturday, August 18, 2012

Transcendence































image borrowed from bing


Transcendence

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
are of imagination all compact.”
--William Shakespeare.


A dun hawk with scorching thermals
beneath its short wings 
baptized the hot air
with its sibilant cry, 
echoing off cliffs and probing
the depths of shimmering canyons
as it spiraled over us, 
its darting shadow
kissing thousands of dead white logs
cast about like Asgaardian kindling
after a pair of logger gods 
had tromped over the foothills.

Sarge and I 
were merely two tiny figures
within the vastness of the clear-cut,
moving like field mice, 
like ants on a sequoia,
scurrying along the craggy back 
of cluttered trails that wandered 
through the broken discarded timber,

both silent, 
sweating in the afternoon swelter,
both listening 
to the susurrous shaman wind
hissing in its ancient tongue.

At road’s end near timberline
we rested in the cool shade
of a red outcropping, thrusting
out from the mountain’s shoulder,
his handsome head busy lapping
up warm canteen water from my palm,

just a man and his dog staring
at the bristle-cone ancient pines
that dotted the escarpment above,
bent like crones from their thousands of years
of standing there 
beyond the axe,
beyond the folly, 
their bark mostly shed,
their bodies nearly petrified, 
their branches creating a series of spiracles,
a helix that breathes rarified air,
a holy nest for angels and eagles
to roost in during the darkness,

trees that are older than any empire,
that began their growth in 3000 BC,
when the Neolithic Period was ending,
when Caral was built in Peru
as the first city in the Americas,
when Troy was founded,
when the Sumerians began to work with various metals,
as Stonehenge was beginning to be erected,
as the potter’s wheel was invented in China
and hieroglyphics began as writing in Egypt.

At twilight we were still toiling
leeward along the green lane,
happy to spot your smoke,
happy to hear the music,
anxious to share
the gentle wisdom we had gained
from our sojourn with the ancestors.


Glenn Buttkus

August 2012


Posted over on dVerse Poets

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