Mia Manifestum

image borrowed from bing

Mia Manifestum

“A painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians

& poets paint their pictures on silence.”

--Leopold Stokowski.

IMPETUS

It just seems that I have always had a need to comment

on the actions that unfolded about me--a mouthy kid,

a bright student who first encountered the word,

the concept of Manifesto with the term Communist

attached to the front of it, and

even as a youngster, struggling to understand Marx’s

philosophy, lying naked on the page, void of spin, 

that spoke

of a brotherhood of man,

I found myself inspired, propelled into a mindset

of liberalism that would too often place me at 

loggerheads with those in control;

the cruel constabulary,

the bastardo--bureaucrats, 

the corporate stooges,

the inept educators,

the lascivious lobbyists, 

& hordes of hypocritical

posses of Pharisees, priests, & popes.

Reading Jack London with a flashlight under

my covers at ten, I loved the Klondike adventures

but what really caught my eye was the lesser

known dystopian & progressive views in

The Iron Heel. 

Reading Steinbeck at twelve I was influenced,

nearly overwhelmed by Tom Joad’s last dialogue

with his Ma, “I’ll be everywhere--around in the dark

wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat,

or a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there--or in the way

guys yell when they’re mad, or when decent people

are eatin’ the stuff they raised, living in the house

they built--I’ll be there.”

So before puberty, before further education

or forays into introspection & enlightenment,

I vowed to myself to be there, in all those dark

Steinbeckian places, to be a pair of fists, or

bleeding lips, or a loose tongue, to be a

reporter,

gad fly,

chronicle-maker,

pariah,

loose cannon,

muckraker--

I just needed to find a way, a medium, a voice;

After reading Chekov’s The Sea Gull, I could not forget

the statements made by Trigorin, the writer,

both blessed & cursed by his incessant need

to catalog every conversation, observance,

“clouds shaped like a grand piano,”

& encounters that he experienced before stating,

“Then I hear my desk calling, and have to go back to it,

and begin to write, write, write once more.”

Then came the thundering of the

deus ex machina, 

the burst of golden light,

after I was introduced to the free verse

of Walt Whitman--suddenly I felt

engorged, entitled, privileged 

to thrust my angst, my shreds of wisdom,

philosophy, & righteous emotion,

like biblical loaves & fishes

out amongst the throngs, the swarm--

& I adopted Whitman’s statement,

“Re-examine all that you’ve been told--

dismiss that which insults your soul.”

Manifest Fatum

So yes, I said yes,

a hundred thousand times yes,

yes to clarity,

yes to a path,

yes to a voice,

yes to becoming a Writer, 

and to write about everything,

to use every form,

technical/vocational writing,

novellas, short stories, novels, political speeches,

resumes, recipes, directions, & advice,

& at the top of the needy list was Poetry,

because I understood that a poet

could be prince or jester, sage or trickster,

ever the standard bearer, the baton twirler,

the soldier on point, the soloist, the alpha creature, the lead dog--

not because I was decreed, sanctified, or directed

by others, but more because something had risen up

within me, within some cosmic quantum arachnid’s webbing,

even deeper within some inexorable helixical truth,

and I find myself forever bound to & blessed with

a demon’s silver tongue,

a clown’s demeanor,

a philosopher’s barbed thoughts,

a warrior’s temperament,

a lover’s touch, attached to

a dove’s divine drive to perpetuate peace, coupled to

a rugby player’s need not to be taken to ground;

As every inhalation of breath 

refreshes my poetic sinews,

strengthens my use of language,

gathering more power in order to pump

out my messages from the heart,

to salve my restless spirit,

& to spread my words

like a sweet bountiful virus

beyond the firewalls of resistance,

like cherry blossoms flung about by a Spring breeze,

& even though most will not know me personally,

will not remember my mere name, maybe,

perhaps some of my poetic viscus will cling

to their hungry lobes & chambers, & might actually

become the fuel, the sustenance they need

to journey on into tomorrow. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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