Thursday, October 9, 2014

Searching for Debbie



cowboy cubism borrowed from bing


Searching for Debbie

“I don’t believe in surrenders, nope. I still got my saber, &
I didn’t beat it into plowshares neither.” --John Wayne
in THE SEARCHERS.

Duke done wrong as right snake-bit fast,
heroic ignorance,
monuments all stone witness defensive carnage,
horses becoming carousel prancers,
forever circles Sufi twirling skirts demon-safe,
turbans--fucking scimitar bleeding Jayne Mansfield’s
headless tits bone buttons
drugstore starch snap pockets roll-your-owns
morning coffee white hat stains brass cartridges
bull rider buckles ray-bans broken rib bird cages,
sky weeping ghost riders with barbed wire smiles,
twin heads at both ends black & white hackamores 
as head dice, head lice, heads of rice, never nice roll
tumbleweed trash plays silver spur ballads only the
angry eyes showing murderous Syrian mask scarves
posting slaughterhouse rules bucket labels Christ’s
spikes complexity of conflicts gods wrestling
some with eight arms lightning bolts raining locusts
buried in hundred foot waves gone fishing
playing chess smoking Turkish cigarettes
on one lung cancer the shadow cancer the victor
golden chalice never claimed within
crusades that never end. 


Glenn Buttkus



Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

Would you like the author to read this Cubist Poem to you?

19 comments:

Mary said...

This is some word romp, Glenn. I think it is harder to write something without meaning than to write something with meaning. You achieved cubism quite well. Bring on the Tuekish cigarettes, and did you mention Jane Mansfield?

Brian Miller said...

ha. nice...and some nice refs in there that still brought it back to the duke...forever circles Sufi twirling skirts ...i like...and nice slippery movement in this ...fun stuff g...

brudberg said...

Ah you met the bar well .. Love those rice nice rhymes as well as the Wild West theme.. Certainly a shattered image like a six-shooter Picasso. Some really cool alliteration as well. To write without a meaning is very difficult and to read it without trying to find meaning even harder..

Kathy Reed said...

I could here Wayne calling me, "Little sister"...and the choice words in this evoked stunning images ..from carousel prancers to roll your owns, "sky weeping ghost riders with barbed wire smiles" really struck me. Then, among the other wonderful visuals, the cubism painting and I'm on the glorious merry go round till the end, to find out crusades never end...whew, this is great, Glenn!

Grace said...

Some interesting verses & rhyming words like tumbleweed trash and silver spur ballads...

You certainly aced the prompt Glenn ~ Have a good day ~

Anonymous said...

Groovy piece. Love- "drugstore starch snap pockets roll-your-owns."

Gabriella said...

And I am left wondering whether they found Debbie...
I like how the Wild West meets contemporary news but think I much prefer wild West action than 'the angry eyes showing murderous Syrian mask scarves
posting slaughterhouse rules'.

Wolfsrosebud said...

i heard the music from those tumbleweeds... nice

Anonymous said...

ahh... the Duke - no androgeny there, I like how even when you play with the words, they seem powerful and driven

Claudia said...

oh heck... that is quite a mash of old and new things going on in the world... the syrian masks part gave me shivers

Sumana Roy said...

"bull rider buckles ray-bans broken rib bird cages," I was delighted to find ray-bans squeezing here..lol..though broken rib is not funny at all for the bull rider...

Arathi Harihar said...

oh loved the rhymes here..beautiful..

Lane Savant said...

Talking my language

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

Wow, scarcely pausing to draw breath ....

Anonymous said...

Glenn - always the story teller, avant garde or not - 'brass cartridges bull rider buckles ray-bans broken rib bird cages' so cool!

minthe said...

"twin heads at both ends black & white hackamores
as head dice, head lice, heads of rice, never nice roll"

This is my favorite section.

And I do enjoy that you always open with a quote.

hyperCRYPTICal said...

A lovely word romp indeed Glenn!
Ducking good! (Just can't write the full word Glenn - maybe it's a girlie thing.)
Anna :o]

Paul Bauck said...

Wow--Cubist poetry; who knew?

David Gilmour said...

Glenn, Can others play this game from your abstract piece? I'd like to start a variation, hardly altering the diction, but maybe adding some odd syntactic form, such as "and" or "to." This might be an new "exquisite corpse" form. "Don't believe in surrender. My saber?--Go ahead, beat it into a plowshare!" From here, bastardized as it is from the John Wayne quote, maybe the theme can be changed in the poem. What do you think?-- David