Thursday, April 18, 2013

Chaos Blossoming



image borrowed from bing


Chaos Blossoming

“Only a poet can capture the essence of chaos.” 
---P.H. Coase

Brilliant blossoms have now burst from their buds
like a living patchwork quilt draping
the ridges on the foothills near your farm;

luscious dew-splattered leaves,
fifty shades of green, have sprouted
in various shapes & configurations;

dressing the bare spines & gray appendages
of maple, oak, and alder that surround
the blue rainbarrel ranch like a fairies' ring.

**************

As Kim Jong-un struts like a dwarf peacock,
attempting boldness, forcefulness, & breathing fire,
struggling like a plump larva surrounded by fire ants,

straining to take his inherited place in what’s left
of the Kim Dynasty, hoping that one day soon
his own colossal statue will stand granite

shoulder to shoulder with those of his father
& grandfather, playing nuclear roulette as
his long-range missiles perch like kimchi condors.

*****************

Hummingbirds are now taking turns hovering
at the blood red feeders hanging 
on your puncheon porch just above the hand-cut

wooden letters that spell Home backwards,
and I can easily hear the honied melodies
of the morning birds, setting up a spooky chorus

with the last of the night dogs belting out
the final notes of their mournful ballads;
seeing you in a Spring work dress squatting 

like a golden maiden, your hands buried
to the wrists in the rich black earth
of your several raised garden beds.

****************

As investigators in Boston are now looking
for a young white man wearing a back pack,
a black jacket, a gray hoodie, and a white

baseball cap worn backwards, and another
white youth who dropped off a suspicious
bag minutes before the first cowardly blast

exploded, bringing death, blowing off limbs,
embedding shrapnel into the innocent
bodies of the the soft targets selected.

*******************

I can see sibling cats leaping white-bellied
into the air after my blue-belled cat lure,
with Sarge, the shepherd, lying next to

the metal barrel stove, watching me,
hoping for another hike up to the 
clear-cut bare foreheads at the edge 

of what’s left of the National forest, he & I 
sole witnesses to massive cloud thighs
masking a cold sun in an eggshell sky.

*****************

As the FBI arrested Paul Kevin Curtis for sending
lethal letters laced with the poison ricin to President
Obama, and a U.S. Senator.

As a fertilizer plant in windswept West, Texas
mysteriously exploded like an atomic bomb,
leveling 60 homes, killing several, wounding hundreds.

*******************

I can visualize that incredible star-choked wedge
of night viewed through the skylight above the bed
in your loft, dreams running clearly

like the icy water rushing sweetly & strongly
down Dry Bed Creek, constellations preening,
vying for our attention, spreading mythos.

But April remains Olympus and defiant,
and obviously it can not be captured
within the slim lines of one poem. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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

10 comments:

Unknown said...

This poem covers such an expanse and maneuvers between the factual and poetic sensibility so well. It is a fine, thoughtful poem that sent my mind in a million directions. Thank you for your patience as I did not get the heads up to Brian and Claudia on time.

Candi Morrow said...

This is a beautiful poem, thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Glenn - this is a completely gorgeous poem - going from the mundane beauty of our normal lives to the senselessness of the violence in the world - outside our little worlds. Just wonderful - K

brudberg said...

Terrific reading, and extremely wise.

Anonymous said...

Glenn this is my favourite poem I've read of yours so far. I love the alternations, and your ending is so poignant, as it is hard to believe that all this can happen in a short space of time (and then all that hasn't been mentioned). Wonderful!

Marbles in My Pocket said...

A fascinating write, Glenn. I can relate to the fading from good to bad; it seems to be the theme of our world, as we are lulled to sleep by the wonder of it all, then blasted awake wondering about it all. A confusing time we live in.

Claudia said...

we're living in a crazy world, aren't we...a multi-layered and brave write glenn..

Anonymous said...

I love the alternation of the dark, threatening sense of foreboding and helplessness in the face of events beyond our control and understanding with the everyday simplicity of what used to be normal life.

hyperCRYPTICal said...

A superb write Glenn - your best.

Anna

David Gilmour said...

Chaos who yawns like a monstrous nothing,
the emptiness filled with ominous whispers,
scares the pants off seated pundits whose brains
cave with the unbearable boom, echoing nothing.
Cherry-tree blooms blow beauty on the winds.
What was once coming scatters, soon gone,
Everything matters ...

A bit of David