The New World

image borrowed from bing

The New World

“Ignore death until the last moment, and as it approaches,

cheat it by shuffling off into a coma.”--Aldous Huxley

Dearest Brother:

The view from my hospital window has become

adventure, like one of our childhood imaginary

journeys into undiscovered landscapes, and I find

once-familiar events suddenly becoming fresh,

shiny-new, with factory-folds & wire tie-downs extant. 

They tell me that I was in a coma for over a week,

& that my traumatic brain injury will eat up months

more with its healing;

all I can say is that outside--the world appears to be

sprinkled with fairy dust, and everything has

a new clarity, as if I am seeing it for the first time;

like those feathered flocks of pious pigeons who now

gather gregariously on rooftops, on wires, on old

TV antennas, on parapets, on gargoyles, where

no yellow finches are allowed, always on alert,

watching for intruder hawks & crows,

as our city’s buildings standing skyscraper tall,

shoulder to concrete shoulder, like steel toadstools

in a giant’s garden now look like the castles of

Grimm, arm in arm battlements, green flags waving

above the wide city park below, peopled with the characters

from books--clowns, dancers, percussionists, mimes, buskers

and a red-robed Magi performing slight-of-hand for pennies,

as the many apple-box orators dispense their gloom & doom

& conspiracy theories, spewing out on the passers-by their

vitriolic take on the Truth, sprinkling it like apple spice on

their tiny slice of the great puzzle,

as three jesters joyfully jingling their tiny silver belles, dancing

& prancing, hand out heart-shaped balloons of every color,

and it seems that one curious little girl had tied her dolly up into

several dyed balloon strings and dozens of hot air receptacles

had lifted the Barbie high above the throng, soaring over the

tired dusty park maples & oaks, mostly unnoticed by

the busy crowd except for a barefooted fat woman

on the corner of Broadway & 3rd, who was pushing

a bright orange wheelbarrow with her crippled 

Jack Russell terrier named Edward riding proudly

in it--both staring up at the giddy Barbie babe, now

plastic naked, her popsicle-stick legs entangled

in countless red-white-& blue balloon strings,

rising, rising, & I think I could hear her giggling,

with one free arm flapping, waving, a flying princess

sailing straight up into God’s awaiting hands, deep

into the labyrinth of love, never to be seen again,

gone--like you, Michael, no longer in this world.

Hey, perhaps you could catch her in your strong arms

there high above the stratosphere, and untangle her

small feet, and hold her gently, and calm her

by telling her the story of our drunken drive home

from O’Malley’s in the rain, with you at the wheel

when that damn dog ran out in front of us, & how

you swerved to miss it & how that brick wall 

rushed forward to make our acquaintance.

Yes, they told me today that you were DOA

when we arrived at Saint Joseph’s, and that

I had gone halfway with you before turning back.

So little brother, you got to solve all those mysteries

we pondered without me. Tell me the answers when

next we meet; and hey, say hi to Mother & Pop

for me. I will probably join you in a cosmic blink, or two.

Oh, and don’t catch all the big fish before I show up. 

Glenn Buttkus

Auguest 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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