Ever the Dreamer

Ever the Dreamer

“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions

to be realized, than a lord among those without dreams.”

--Kahlil Gibran.

Still that fresh-faced boy

on that windblown bluff

             above Puget Sound,

                        under a peeling madrona,

                                   staring out at Blake Island,

                                                                  dreaming

                                                  of becoming

                                             a writer,

                                      an actor,

                             a teacher;

a recipient of some kind of wonderful windfall,

                                                         gathering

                                                         enough wealth

                                                         to be able to live

on one of the grand islands in the Sound--

to build my dream-house

that had a deck with white railings

                                          and red bannisters,     

                                          part pirate ship,

                                          laden with colorful rigging

and two brass telescopes to star-watch with,

                                          redwood whiskey barrels

                                          made into raised gardens;

while rising out of the middle of the magical roof there

                                          would be a Stephen King

ten story tall writer’s tower, protruding phallic like

                                          a poet’s lighthouse

                                          where the muses could mass

                                          high above the pine & maple tops,

where I could witness sunrises over the Cascades          

                       & sunsets over the rugged Olympics.

                       A simple enough plan, just

                       become a successful rich Actor,

                       gaining a modicum of notoriety;

then happen to mention to my posse of agents,

Hey, did you know I have written a couple of novels,

& thousands of poems, & the words cry out to be shared ?

                      Perhaps we could publish some of this stuff,

                      make a pile of cash

                      and put our kids through college. 

Oh yes, my dreams were vivid,

like neon roadmaps,

& yet, as is too often the case,

like losing your virginity,

like turning 21, 30, 40, 50, 60,

the destination once arrived at,

the goals achieved (sort of),

never

     seems

         as grand

              as imagined

                    or anticipated,

                             because youth

                                  is blind to wisdom,

                                           deaf to sage advice.

                                   I became the Actor, 

                                            but a whirling decade

                                                  of Thespianism never led

                                                           to a plateau of success,

rather it just revealed the grit below the glitz,

the negative energy of daily rejection, like

drinking alcohol when dying of thirst,
it’s certainly wet, but it never slacks the need,

or nourishes the soul.

                                         So one onerous smog-ridden beaten-down

                                         day in the ghetto of Hollywood, I decided to

                                         embrace a hiatus, seek gainful employment;

                  & I’ll be damned if it didn’t come to me

                  easily, like colliding with a stranger on the

                  bus, staring at their face, & understanding

that you recognize them, knew them

from another life,

from another dream.

                  

                  It was time for MacDuff to fade,

                  for Benedick to become mute,

                  for Sancho Panza to let Quixote slip away,

                  for Adolphus Cusins to divorce Major Barbara,

                  for the cowpoke drifter to stable his silver spurs,

                  for the sailor to give away his fuck pitchers,

                  for the soldier to unload his weapons,

                  for the Commedia masks to be put away gently;

time for the teacher to make a difference

in the darkness, for the shadow poet to

continue to be a passionate scribe, for

the novelist to learn technical writing,

as the make-up, tights, & ruffled shirts

were put into the back of the wardrobe;

           as several dense decades gathered

           at my feet like a windblown Sunday

           newspaper, with the funnies & editorials

wrapping warmly around my thighs--

becoming emotional at my retirement

party as my former students & fellow 

employees saluted & roasted me,

filling me with a genuine sense

of fulfillment. 

As I launched my next ten year plan,

a wondrous wisp of a thing happened--

my dreams were rekindled, & every day

it seemed dreams became reality,

coming to ragged & beauteous fruition,

but energized, reborn, rejuvenated replacements

lined up

         like dream warriors

                           within me--

                                     in a never-ending

                                               spiral, twisting themselves

                                                         into a helix formation,

all with a child’s face,

wide-eyed,

pink-cheeked,

tousle-haired,

filled

with that old

sense of 

wonder. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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