I Got Rhythm

image borrowed from bing

I Got Rhythm

“Life is like dancing, learning those new steps,--even

though some may get angry when the rhythm changes.”

--Miguel Angel Ruiz

Time, man, time,

that gnarly old bitch, 

that angry old bastard;

keep it, beat it,

bend it over the kitchen table

& sodomize the slut.

Hey, you never run out of it;

it is artesian, infinite, perpetually in motion, 

regenerative, & perhaps it is a lie, 

an illusion.

What a pisser that now, finally, as I pay myself

to spend time doing those things I enjoy,

still its laughter is chilling--with its big butt

occupying the catbird perch, sending flocks

of raven ravages to peck at my body,

my mind, my sight, my dreams;

just dig the deviance as those gut-wrenching

rituals of my morning preparation for the

100,000 Slave Days are now fully replaced

by the golden silver-maned rituals of Leisure;

regardless, there is some part of me that fully 

understands, yes,  I can still stride like a tiger, 

but there are dark forces out there who continue 

to stalk,

to hunt me, 

and one day, 

one possibly pleasant day 

in the dead of winter, they will slay me, 

strip off my flesh, then flatten what’s left of it 

into somebody’s living room throw rug, 

my stuffed head intact, jaws open,

teeth bared, given glass eyes & then forced

to be intimate with a vacuum cleaner--

so before that fateful day, I will hoard bundles

of goose quills & Mason jars of my own blood,

& late at night, safely locked up in my sanctuary,

listening to the predators milling around outside,

I will dip those quills deeply into the red juice

of my essence, & write in my leather-bound 

notebooks those unspeakable things, 

the bloody poetics

of love, lost and regained,

of mortality, lost & ready to refresh,

of death, sucking face with skulls,

of poisonous frogs devouring spiders,

of monkeys with white whiskers 

still dancing at the end of their chains,

still holding out the rusty cup,

still begging & praying & planning,

still defiant, making arthritic fists,

still in lesson & learning,

still ready to extend kindness where needed,

remaining a pugilistic lover 

with a punch like a mule’s kick, 

satiating my radiant spirit with the iridescence

& consistency necessary for the continuing

sustenance of the True Self;

oh yeah, dudes, my skin bags are already packed

with my wisdom, karmic debt, & several itineraries,

because it is clear to me that the dreaded dirt nap,

or the fierce flames of cremation 

are not the end game, they are

just temporary way stations 

dotted along the continuing

saga of soul journey.

Glenn Buttkus

October 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

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