Office Amalgam

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Office Amalgam

“The revolution is an amalgam of former party functionaries, who

are in power now, & represent a dirty hybrid never before seen in

world history.”--Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

My office, once

                 a bedroom, is a

                 supportive space; often mysterious,

as my guilty desk

puts my narcissistic backside         to my bold bookcase,

                 just as sardonic sunbeams bathe

                             the dusty spine of an outraged volume

of Leonard Cohen’s poetry--

STRANGER MUSIC.

                 I do find it odd, after

                        embracing the wonders of Spellcheck & Google

with my loving fingertips, or

                        wireless mouse, I am

still very compassionate

about cracking the brittle forgotten pages

                                        of my huge clever dictionary, once

                         my only ally while foolishly seeking brilliance,

                                        or at least competence.

I cannot help but adore

the deep-throated click

of my massive expensive 8 TB hard drive unit

as it happily burns copies

of classic movies from borrowed DVDs;

                        & it often sings a cyber duet

                        with the angel-white angry document shredder

that is chewing through handfuls 

                         of personal data, hungry, voracious 

as a proper paper piranha.

On the secretive back of the door hangs

            a cautious full-length mirror,

                        cloistered against a sympathetic wall,

                                    not wanting its dreary images

                                              to startle or alarm passers-by.

                                    On my sweet wife’s impervious

                            & adjacent desk, an arrogant pile

                    of new twenty dollar bills still lies

           ungathered, with their untidy folds

playing patty-cake with

the cold white ceramic case

of her stately lap top.

          

Nearby,             on a beauteously grained wooden

                 folding tray squats scintillating stacks

                 of old & bold poetry, penned in the past,

alongside dVerse anthologies, where

                                                 some of my blissful words appear,

                 weighed down by the onerous bulk

                 of my Blackthorne manuscript, with its

jet-black pious plastic covers, held steadfast 

                 with a shiny chrome trio of thick rings,

                 with its existential Western within. 

I do find a bravery,

              a beauty,

              an awe-inspiring event, by just

                           inhabiting this magnificent meditative space,

              where enthusiasm is unearthed,

                                                laid bare,

                                                revealed,

               spurred into hearty flames daily.

where digital images are reviewed, cataloged, & posted,

where poetry is first generously scrawled out in longhand,

               then forced to interact with the blue pencil, before

               it finds its inky way to paper & post,

                               at least partially confident that they

                               are in a correct order, with

               the message bordering fresh,

               the metaphor elegant,

               the rhyme scheme ambiguous,

               the meter calm, &

               the verse itself is yet free,

splashed across the naked page

like raucous robins after a rain,

congregated noisily on my back yard

while conducting a passionate worm hunt. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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