Friday, June 27, 2014

Blackthorne--Scene Twenty-Seven



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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Twenty-Seven

Detainment

“An artist should not be conscious of his insights, should not
recognize or detain them--just allow them to transform themselves
into a beautiful work.”--Rainer Maria Rilke.

1(sound cue) slow snare drum baps,
2(medium 2-shot) angle on Buck’s back, weapons lowered, facing
the Sheriff.
--Sheriff: My name’s Joe Hop. I represent the law in this town; set
your bangers down & point those fingers at the sky.
Buck squatted down slowly & gently put the pistol & sawed off on the boardwalk.
3(CU) on Buck, wearing a small smile.
--Buck: Yeah, the barber was just jawing about you when we got
interrupted. (putting his hands up from the elbows only).
4(cut to a medium wide shot) a lath-thin deputy stepped out of the barber shop
5(sound cue) Broken glass popping under his boots, with harmonica huffing.
6--& stood alongside Hop, easily a head taller.
--
Hop: (keeping his eyes on Buck) Talk to me, Marcus.
--Deputy: Barnes is gut-shot but breathing; I sent Bob for Doc Kellner.
The Sheriff handed his shotgun to his deputy, then bent down & picked up
Buck’s irons. He slipped the pistol into his own belt, & pointed the sawed-off
directly at Buck’s chest. 
7(Switch to a reverse shot) Behind Hop & Marcus, angle on Buck’s angry face.
8(sound cue) elongated soft violin bowing.
9(hold the reverse medium wide shot) The Sheriff pulls out the pistol.
10(Cut to medium CU) The Sheriff inspects the pistol, then sniffs the cylinder.
--Hop: This gun’s been fired recently.
11(reverse shot) Hop’s shoulder, Buck’s face:
--Yup, twice; had a little scuffle over to the CHINA DOLL. Feller named Ramos
gave me no choice in the matter.
12(sound cue) acoustic guitar strumming.
13(close-up) Hop: Did you shoot our barber? Hell, he is the only one we got.
--Buck (VO): I had no call to do that. 
14(cut to a crane shot) pulling back wide, revealing that a crowd of townspeople
was beginning to gather.
15(two-shot) 
--Hop: You got a name?
--Buck: Buck.
--Hop: Just Buck?
--Buck: Rod Buck.
--Hop: Where you from?
--Buck: South.
--Hop: (chuckling) Kind of vague--South.
--Buck: The mountains, Mexico, the big Out There.
--Deputy: You’d better answer the Sheriff’s questions, Hoss--
you’re in a shit pot of trouble.
16(sound cue) Indian Snake Rattle, castanets.
17(medium close up) Buck: I suppose you figure I just shot this fellow
for the hell of it, & then stood calmly out here in the street waiting for
you two to get the drop on me?
18(Cut to a wide shot) Angle on a aproned figure with a wild shock of
white hair pushing his way through the crowd. It was Henry Wallace,
the storekeeper. 
Wallace: He’s innocent, Joe, so climb the deuce off his back.
19(medium wide shot) Wallace standing beside Buck, with Hop & the Deputy
facing them. 
--Hop: Alright, Henry, tell us all what the Sam Hill happened here?
--Buck: I was just fixin’ to tell you that.
20(sound cue) accordion & juice harp.
21(medium CU) Hop: Am I talking to you? You just stand there keeping those
hands in the air.
22(CU) Wallace: Christ, Sheriff, I wasn’t the only one who saw it. God damn it,
a person can get shot right here in the middle of the street, & everyone will just
step over him--like he wasn’t there!
--Hop (VO) Rein up some there, Henry.
--Wallace: So where in the hell were you a while ago when that ruckus broke out
in Bronson’s pig wallow? Probably off somewhere fishing or chasing a lace
petticoat, right?
23(sound cue) low notes on a clarinet, reedy.
24(medium close up) Hop: Why Mr. Wallace, your accusations wound me to the
gristle,
25(pull back to a wide shot) Two dozen people have gathered around them now.
--Hop: For everyone’s information, I was over to see Judge Jeremy in King City,
& I just came back to town a short while ago--just before all this affair developed, &
my deputy didn’t have time to fill me in on what might have occurred in my absence. 
26( Angle on Wallace)
--Hop (VO): So please tell me now, what did you see?
27(sound cue) French horn low riffs.
28(medium close up) Wallace: Two masked horsemen, riding Bronson Ranch
jugheads, came busting down the street & when they passed the barber shop
they blasted the window out of it; never slowing down, they turned into that
alley & rode like blue blazes out the other end. 
29(pull back to medium wide shot) A stocky farmer, a big Swede, in bibbed
overalls stepped up: Das right--he told it true. I seen the same thing. 
30(medium two-shot) 
--Hop: That’s all?
--Wallace: Pretty much.
--Hop: Where were you when this happened?
--Wallace: I was in front of my store loading supplies on this gentleman’s
horse( to Buck ) What did you say your name was?
31(medium CU) Buck dropped his hands, folded his thick arms across his
massive chest, staring at the Sheriff.
--Hop (VO): Buck, he said it was Rod Buck. 
32(sound cue) Saloon piano & Indian flute.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN  

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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Epithetic Elephant Erasers



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Epithetic Elephant Erasers

“All the world’s religions are just the mirror
of the One Face.”--Dada JP Vaswani.

Never give a pink goose      a nickel-plated .45,
                             for you need paper-mache 
rhino skin to survive
                     all those impregnated voyages
                             of discovery,
                             or deeper yet, dropping below
                     the sagittal crust.

Words can be
           spoken,
           sung, or
           written,
no matter whose foul gums they have been between,
            but certainly before
            utilization,
                                 as you spew their spawn
            like dancing dew bubbles dangling lustily
all along the dazzling ditches
                                 of spider web blue highways,
watch the five crows flying
                                 on gossamer bat wings
                                 into the dusky jeweled colon
of the nearly noxious night. 

Truth is, can be,
         as gritty as alkaline dust
         clinging to the calculus
between your malicious molars, because
         everyone already knows,
                         but chooses to ignore the fact
that Morality dissipates quickly
                         after the angry guns
                         are drawn,
because God & Jesus don’t ride Mopeds, man,
                         and the Beasts can easily outrun you. 
If you do shoot a grizzly
                         in your pajamas,
how in hell did he get them on?

So conflictingly droll to see God daily
                         using public transport,
mantled China Red in bloody robes,
                                               like a mad monk,
              postulating that Music is
              the Gospel Silence
              between the black lines,
                             below the bars,
                             adjacent to,
                             over the naughty notes,
because elitist demi-gods ride the hot rails
              preferring first class,
                              thrusting invisible wisdom
              into brown sausage skins
                              beyond our pitiful grasp,
worshipping manic mimicry
             over any form of original thought. 

Contrary to media blitzes, Plato
                   was so much more than
                   a randy cross-dressing putz
                                running roughshod
over his nubile harem of young boys, so
if your female doctor
                    asks you to stop masturbating,
                                 perhaps even with her wet lips
                                 pursed, she only wants
to listen to your heart, being
                    dismayed at hearing the half-beats
of loneliness, realizing that you have neglected
                     to connect
to that counterpoint companion
                     that still might complete you. 

We do adore our heroes
            until they machete off their
            girlfriend’s head, disregarding
that only Monarch butterflies
            fully understand the transience of Beauty,
while rejecting longevity, 
burning brightly, never missing a chance
                           to appear at a Town Hall Meeting,
                           or to flutter naked in
a Butthole Surfers rock video. 

Is all Art just
        shredded reconstituted
        plagiarism, of do we come
into this world astride a bilious bubble
              of cosmic dew,
already cognizant that Sartre
              ate horse shit sandwiches,
already understanding that Paul & John
were not popes, God forbid, no
              they were Beatled revolutionaries
                               leading us blithely to the government
ghettos of Dystopian Depths
                               or Utopian Heights,
as city planners enjoy the developer’s dole,
           greedily suckling the neon tits of Graft. 
                       

          
Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Extantional



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Extantional 

“There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers;
that is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.”
--Stephen Hawking.

When you’re a kid,
                     death is just a game you play
                     when it’s your turn
to be the Indian, & your Cowboy friends
                     empty their finger guns & cap pistols
into your gut.

You grunt, groan, & moan,
                 grabbing your imaginary wound
as you go to your knees,                  flop over backwards,
twitch a little,       close your eyes,          hold your breath
                 and get it over with. 

You go to your first funeral
when you are thirteen,
wearing your church clothes,
as your uncle,
who hit a telephone pole while driving drunk,
lies waxen & ashen in his attractive coffin,
looking like a discarded department story dummy;
as the weeping & wailing seems odd
counterpointed by the humorous testimonials. 

You are in your early twenties
                 when you mother dies
                                 before she was forty;
death being assisted by demon cancer,
                                 & this time the copious tears
are your own, & the testimonials
are not funny.

Before long,
           you are thirty-something,
                        & friends, cousins, grandparents
                                         & nephews all die.
You become accustomed to grief therapy
                        & the trappings of ceremony,
                        finding yourself looking forward
to the food served after the service--
                        joyfully celebrating a life
versus being overwhelmed
           by lamentation & loss.

Death becomes the pink elephant
in the yard,
in the room;
difficult to ignore,
a tedious demanding companion now--
no longer that occasional drop-in visitor,
an annual or semi-annual guest; no,
it is incessant, unceasing, always there
in your peripheral vision--
whispering, cajoling, begging;
look at me,
acknowledge me,
respect & fear me;

Simply inexorable, inevitable,
a dark destination with a shadowy depot
                              that every traveler one day
                              must pass through;
so in defense of your fragile sanity
                              you begin to earnestly study
                               the thick tomes
of hope,
of faith,
of physics,
of philosophy, & one magical day
                          the fear is nearly gone, replaced
by shimmering exuberant alacrity
                        & logic, as you
are comforted by          cosmic truths,        past lives,
                             quantum theory & metaphysics;
as you passionately postulate
                        that the fuck-stick of Death
                        is just another doorway,
                        a transitional portal--

that soul energy can never be, is never
extinguished--that although
your damaged husk
                        will have to be abandoned,
like a broken, rusted, inoperable machine
that your caring loved ones
                         will crate up in preparation
                         for cremation
                         or internment,
& you will be aware of their sadness,
   you will be mostly occupied with
                bustling about the dominion of Source,
                making decisions about
                where
in the vast Spiritual Realm
                 you will be posted next,
for you prove to be a strong swimmer
in the cosmic currents
of the Continuum. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets

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Thursday, June 19, 2014

Call to Duty



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Call to Duty

“War does not determine who is right,
only who is left.”--Bertrand Russell.

When your Country calls,
you kiss your loved ones farewell,
train hard to handle weapons efficiently,
deploy to a foreign land
& kill the fucking enemy--
as directed. 

Our grandfathers took part
                 in Operation Overlord,
                             just as many of us were being born
in 1944;                most of them departed from Portsmouth,
England, & took part in the largest amphibious invasion in history,
                             hitting the bloody beaches of
Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, & Sword.
Over a million of our grandfathers did not come home.

When your Country calls,
you kiss your loved ones farewell,
train hard to handle weapons efficiently,
deploy to a foreign land,
& kill the fucking enemy--
as directed.


In 1951 our uncles took part
                              in the Korean War (Conflict),
                                        part of the aftermath of WWII,
                                        when the Japanese no longer controlled
the country, & the Soviet Union occupied the north,
                              above the 38th parallel,
                                         where Communism thrived like a pandemic.
Many of our uncles came in amphibiously at Inchon,
and pushed back the North Korean Army 
                              to above the Yalu river,
                              with their backs to the Chinese border--
until hundreds of thousands of fresh Chinese troops,
outfitted by the Soviet Union,
                              flooded into Korea, pushing our uncles
into a stalemate that lasted several more years.
33,686 uncles did not come home. 

When your Country calls,
you kiss your loved ones farewell,
train hard to handle weapons efficiently,
deploy to a foreign land,
& kill the fucking enemy--
as directed.

Coincidently in 1950,
                    the turmoil in French Indochina,
required us to send in military advisors, 
                    & of course in 1964, without
JFK to prevent it, many of us were pulled out of college,
or our civilian jobs, & sent to the delta, jungles, & tiger pits
as the Viet Nam War raged on for 9 more years.
                    In 1968 we were caught off guard
by the Tet Offensive, & it became obvious,
even to the hawk knuckleheads,
                    that the war was beyond any dreams of victory, so
we pulled out with our tail between our legs in 1975.
58,300 of us did not come home. 

When your Country calls,
you kiss your loved ones farewell,
train hard to handle weapons efficiently,
deploy to foreign lands,
& kill the fucking enemy--
as directed.

In 2003 the Bush Administration,
                   through lies & deception,
pushed us into the Iraq War, 
                   as many of our sons became
part of the American-led Coalition Forces
                   who conducted a surprise military invasion of Iraq
without declaring War. We fought in that sand-flea infested shit hole
for 9 years--until Obama, fulfilling his campaign promise,
pulled us out.
                   4,487 of our sons did not come home.

Even earlier, in 2001, after 9/11,
                    many of our nephews were sent
to Afghanistan in pursuit of Bin Laden,
                   even though as we concentrated our forces
in Iraq, we had less soldiers there than NYC had policemen.
13 years later,
                  we are still there, and already
2,313 of our nephews did not come home.

Today, this minute,
            President Obama is considering sending
the cream of our fighting men,
            Delta Force, Seals, Army Rangers, & Green Berets,
BACK INTO that camel shit-smeared quagmire
in Iraq, to mediate between
            the Sunni & Shea factions,
& to advise them how to face down
the blood-thirsty Isis fighters;
how many of these boys & men
will never come home again?

                   
Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Wee Scunner



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Wee Scunner

“Yer bum’s out the windae”--Scottish saying.

On quiet nights, between trains,
I can hear the faint lullaby of the pipes,
                 & I smile as the sandman
                 puts his thumbs gently on my lids,
                              for I know that soon I will be
transported,
                dreaming of blue faces,
                              fierce Picts, clans of Celts,
standing with
                bare-assed kilted brothers
                              facing Hadrian’s Wall again,
                                                        remembering the Romans
& their fookin’ kingdom of Britannia;

drawn to the deep cold lochs,
to the Highlands dotted with long-haired cattle--
                 enjoying some kind of past-life connection,
to the last of the fir forests,
                 to the wet mountainous terrain,
where once I was a villager,
foraging for a living above 3000 feet,
                  before the deforestation of the region,
                  still alive with bear, wolf, elk, & lynx,
                  before
they were hunted to extinction;

and some nights I remember more,
a lifetime or two,
                 up in the Northern Isles,
a fisherman residing in the Shetlands.

Living now in the vastness of America,
it seems intellectually
               claustrophobic to consider
               that once or thrice I Iived
in a country smaller than Texas,
with a narrow waist to the South,
                only 60 miles wide at its border with England,
where one could see Ireland only 19 miles away,
where Norway or France 
                        could be reached within
                        a few days of sailing.

My genetic recall tingles
                        each time I see an image
                                         or a movie of Scotland;
                                                more so than any other foray
                                                                             or exposure to
any other corner of the globe;        still one must face the fact
that each incarnation comes with its own inherent
limitations.

Sadly,
as I age in this body,
                  traveling has become difficult,
                                        & finances have become meager;
so I have begun to rely on “remote viewing”
                                        & “astral projection”,
accepting the onerous fact than only in the land of dreams
will I frolic in the bonnie beauty that still awaits;
                           remaining confident that my rugged roots
sprang from a Scottish paradise
                           that I will never revisit
                           with this fatigued husk. 
                

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics

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