Evolution Is Never Linear

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Evolution Is Never Linear

“The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not

live for itself--it gives life to others as it transforms.”

--Lao Tzu.

My first adolescent fumbling with poetry,

mostly long & rambling purple prose,

more masturbatory than masterful,

was to woo a girl in high school;

which was silly in retrospect,

for she was unattainable, blond,

a cheerleader, going steady with a jock,

pregnant before graduation.

There was this tall effeminate 

Language Arts teacher that taught poetry,

where I got my first glimpse of Whitman,

guiding me to see the marvelous poetic

touches within the prose of Howard Fast,

Steinbeck, & Faulkner. 

Incredibly, 

half a century has played out,

& my poetry has been my shadow companion

from

    my time

          in the Navy

                    during Viet Nam,

& throughout my second & third returns to college

during those

           thrilling, turbulent

                         Beatles-soaked,

                                       bra-less hippy-dippy

                                                long hair, leather fringed,

I’m a Gemini--let’s fuck

days;

and the poems were very political, personal, 

influenced by wondrous dips into the far-out realms

of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Kesy, Burroughs & Bukowski--

muscular poetics

with both romantic & metaphysical

shadings.

Mid-life my pantheist bent mixed liberally 

with my inner spiritual journeys--catapulted

into a frenzied hyper-drive at 3 a.m.

one morning on the high desert

near Red Mountain, CA,

as a UFO encounter helped my poetry

take on a deeper aesthetic--

just before technology transported me

beyond my immediate sphere,

my private patch of the planet,

spreading my atoms, my mind,

my words to every conceivable corner

of the earth, introducing myself

to others through my poetry,

fueling the creative flames,

providing the updraft

that would keep me aloft.

Besides the obvious expansion

of my horizons, I experienced revelations

& epiphanies as shared knowledge

enriched my writing skills exponentially,

& strengthened my courage as the

passionate pack of poets perpetuated

my realization that poetry, like music,

is universal, cosmic, & essential--

and that all dialects, points of view,

forms & messages should be

regarded as valid. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics  

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