Trinity Tales

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Trinity Tales

“Pessimism, distrust, & irony are the holy trinity of

my personal religion; irony in particular.”--Brando Skyhorse. 

I.
I stood downtown

            in front of a department store window

                        that was being busily decorated

                        for Halloween;           ghosts,

                                                          goblins

                                                          ghouls

                                                          gnomes

                                              gnarly green giants;

            pumpkin princes,

            pirate’s parrots,

            pernicious pariahs,

            puzzling palindromes;

dwarves,

dragons,

dingle-berries,

donut mushrooms, &

death defying ducks--              & I was barely aware

                       of the other people busily

                       crowding around me;                babbling,

                       buzzing, agitated, frightened, not seeing

the young woman lying on her back

                       on the pavement,

turning blue,

limbs twitching in

full seizure,

eyes rolled back,

with coffee-colored foam            covering red lips,

                        staining her yellow silk blouse. 

II.

Leaving the Art theater

              with a female friend,

                        right after viewing a revival

                                         of Bergman’s PERSONA,

my arms sawing the air,

my excited words rising & falling

                  in the evening’s chill,

                  trying to explain, what I perceived as

                                              the psychological existential symbolism

within the classic Swedish film,

the commonly encountered nature

                       of those who are too easily

                       other-directed, & the too human

                                               need for some to follow (blindly)

                                               & others to lead (arrogantly),

carefully drawing a fascinating parallel

                       to the topical reality of young malcontents

                       being too easily recruited, trained, & turned

                                               into home-grown terrorists;

then suddenly

        finding our path blocked

        by two men in black hoodies, just as

I saw the muzzle of the Glock;

       We’ll be taking your wallets & watches, mother fuckers,

                        the shorter one said. 

III.

For delicious decades,

we have lived in a house

                        rife with portals, humming

                        with metaphysical psychic meditative imagery,

and often, too often

                 according to my three daughters,

                 we all detect movement & presence

in our periphery--

          people & pets             who are not there,

                                             but were there

          for a few fleeting moments.

We call them the Visitors, and for the most part

         they have always been gregarious,

         as they stroll & slice through

                      several dimensional veils, even

         the ones who actually materialize

for a minute, or an elongated part of one,

visiting with us in plain sight.             My wife & I

         have always been receptive to

                      and in tune with

these visits;

& that’s made all the difference. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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