Blackthorne--Scene 32

image borrowed from en.wikipedia.org 

Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Thirty-Two

The Offer

“Every woman is a queen, & we all have different

things to offer.” --Queen Latifah.

1(sound cue) Saloon piano & castanets. 

2(two-shot) Salina, controlling her rage:

--So what the hell have you got my Dad mixed up in?

Buck, brows knitted, eyes narrowing:

--I don’t have your father mixed up in anything. What’s your beef

with me?

3(close-up) Salina: Do you want him to end up gut-shot like the barber?

4(two-shot) over Salina’s shoulder, a small grin sprouting on Buck:

--You know, he seems full grown to me, with a mind of his own.

Salina thumped the black quirt against her leather skirt.

5(sound cue) Thwack-thwack-quirt onto leather-clad thigh, shifting into

three drumstick whacks.

6(three-shot) as Wallace steps partially between them.

Wallace: Just calm down, all I did was help him straighten out a 

little misunderstanding.

Buck wiped his mouth, still wet from drink.

--No harm done, none intended, little lady. I’m obliged for your

father’s help.

7(medium close-up) Her eyes were calming as she listened to him, & 

we become very aware of her gorgeous green eyes & full lips, wearing

no lip paint.

8(sound cue) Violin & banjo.

9(three-shot) over her shoulder with Salina saying a bit sarcastically:

--Well, Mr. Rod Buck--so you decided to finally come home at last?

Buck: Looks that way.

Salina: Should we alert The Bugle--let folks share the news?

Wallace: I think Mr. Buck found his own way of letting folks around

here know that he’s back in town.

10(close-up) Salina burst out with a hearty laugh.

11(medium close-up) Buck: I never realized that anybody cared, or I

might have come back sooner.

12(sound cue) Clarinet & Native American snake rattle.

13(close-up) Salina: You want to sell your ranch?

14(medium two-shot) Buck turning to Wallace:

--What the deuce is she prattling about?

15(close-up) Wallace: She wants to know if you are interested in selling

Antlered Buck.,

16(three-shot) Buck looked puzzled. Salina folded her arms, the quirt still

in her right hand.

Wallace: It’s a fair question.

Buck: Sell to who?

17(two-shot) over Buck’s shoulder.

Salina: To us--Dad & I.

Buck: No offense, but why in hell would I want to do that?

18(sound cue) Harmonica & guitar.

19(medium close-up) Salina: Because Cash Bronson wants it, & we would

prefer he doesn’t get it--because you are a big tumbleweed, & one of these

nights you are going to blow right back out onto that prairie--and your ranch

will be host to blow sand again.

20(close-up) Buck: I’ve been out there a long time. A man can change.

21(extreme close-up) Salina: Either that or you are liable to screw around

here, stirring up dog turds & kicking butt--until you get Bronson so riled-up

that he’ll arrange to have your damn fool head taken off at the shoulders.

22(three shot) Buck was silent for a moment, masticating on what she had

said. Salina had her hands on her hips. Wallace had his arms folded, waiting

for a reply.

23(sound cue) Wagons & riders outside in the street,.

24(crane medium wide shot) Cut to the exterior of the store by pulling back

from the trio, through the plate glass window, dollying backward. People

were milling around on the boardwalk & in the street, four boys were kicking

a can, a little girl was spinning a wagon rim with a stick, Cheewa was lying

by the front door on the porch, watching the tall deputy who was sitting on

a public bench nearby.

25(sound cue) sweet melody; piano, violin, harmonica, & accordion. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets OLN

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Trium Liberorum

image borrowed from abstract.desktopnex

Trium Liberorum

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed with new blood

from time to time.”--Thomas Jefferson.

image by buttkus

Burly bolts

finally pull through

eroded & neglected

fire-damaged bricks; abandoned, surely

forgotten. 

***********************************************

image by buttkus

Alone on

a side track, the tall

locomotive was obliged

to remain still; arrogant, proudly

posing there. 

************************************************

image by buttkus

It can be

very difficult to

capture a train inside your

vehicle, without a camera;

believe me. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Hirsute Hurrahs

image of/by buttkus

Hirsute Hurrahs

“I am undaunted in my quest to amuse myself

by constantly changing my hair.”--Hillary Clinton

There does seem to be something

                             religiously/spiritually/fashionably significant

                                         to being hirsute, with long hair & beard, as

                             are the Hassidic Jews, Islamic leaders, Quakers, Amish,

Mennonites, Chinese philosophers, & old hippies--

            even to some extant this resonates with me, myself, as I prepare

                            for an audition in a historical play; MRS. PACKARD, 

            with long gray locks over my ears, hanging down in my face

that is now covered with a salt-&-pepper slightly-trimmed beard;

being prepared to style my ample growth

into a full beard, 

          mutton chops, 

          drooping mustache, 

          van dyke, or long

          thick sideburns--whatever the character calls for; 

               because it is far easier to trim long hair & a beard,

                              but much more difficult to grow them out during 

                                             the rehearsal period--I abhor fake beards & wigs.

************************************************

In 1968

at the Biltmore Theater in NYC,

          a Broadway show opened called

                   HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical;

     its songs became anthems for the war protesters,

     its profanity, irreverence for the American flag, nudity,

     sexuality & depiction of drug use

changed the scope of musical plays forever

                     to the infectious strains of Age of Aquarius. 

***************************************************

Mighty Samson tore

a lion to pieces with his bare 

hands, they say;

slew a thousand

Philistines with the jawbone of an ass,

tore the city

gate completely off in Gaza before punishing

the entire population,

but he was

no match for the cunning Delilah, who

was paid 11,000

pieces of gold

by the angry Philistines to find Samson’s

weakness; which she

dutifully did, cutting

off his seven long locks, rendering him

defenseless, robbing him

of his God-

given extraordinary strength. They captured him &

made him a

slave after blinding

him; but they failed to notice that

after a year

his hair grew

longer, & as they lashed him to 

temple pillars

he asked God

for the strength to exact his revenge,

which he was

granted--pulling down

the central pillars, killing thousands along with

himself. No one

seems to know

or remember, or care whatever happened to

the lovely Delilah. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

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Hybrid

image borrowed from sadanduseless.com

Hybrid

“Naked cells, lacking self-respect, do not seem to have any

sense of self, & can divide into monstrous hybrid progeny.”

--Lewis Thomas.

No one completely

recalls their many fevered dreams, 

because what rises

to actual consciousness are just divers colorful random fragments, like

rogue strands of DNA--standing naked in line at Starbuck’s--being attacked

by three knife-wielding muggers & only having a red silk scarf to protect

yourself with--encountering a silverback grizzly in the aisle of Ace Hardware

while holding a yellow watering can--driving in a dead-stop traffic jam in a

typhoon in a vehicle that has no body, sitting on an orange bucket wearing

hand cuffs, steering with your knees--being chased by a pair of white tigers

& barely able to move in super slow-motion--being on some kind of

date with Scarlett Johansson, her wearing a see-through blouse, somehow

knowing you will wake up before you score with her--walking alone on the

desert & stumbling into a huge nest of rattlesnakes, stopping as several of

the larger ones slither over your bare feet--being tied with clothesline, bound

up in a cellar, the rope slathered with peanut butter, with rats chewing on

the knots--spiders the size of lap dogs crawling on the walls of your bathroom

--being at a holiday family gathering in a house you’ve never seen before, with

several of your dearly departed showing up, as if death was not a deterrent to

genuine love--riding a black Harley motorcycle at more than a hundred miles

per hour & realizing you have no brakes--driving a rental truck on the coast

highway with its hairpin turns in a lightning storm, as the truck slides out of

control, breaking through the wooden guard rail, & plunging a thousand feet

toward the angry sea--hooking a 220 pound bass in a strange pond, then

wrapping your legs around a stump to keep from being pulled into the brackish

water--arriving at a familiar theater, not being acknowledged by anyone, not

knowing what the play is, not knowing where the dressing room is, or what 

your part is, or what your lines are, as you can hear the audience laughing

at a play in progress--climbing the sheer rock face of the Devil’s Tower, free-

style & not feeling fear or vertigo--snowshoeing in the back country when you

hear the unmistakable roar of an avalanche, snapping trees, coming for you.

A million scenarios, absurd litanies, a lexicon of illogical tableaus & irregular

plots, a crazy quilt of emotions, adventures, fears, joys, heartbreaks, pinnacles,

near-death & after death experiences, conquests, failures, being lost, pain

& pleasure;

where you are 

the Star of your own

magnificently successful movie,

where

your fantasies

are satiated and

your nightmares blossom black,

like shadow roses

in your

secret garden.

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

Today Brian Miller wants us to take a classic poetic form & "make it your own".

My hybrid form is a Haibun, starting with a Collum Lune, followed by a prose

paragraph, followed by another Collum Lune, capped with a stanza of my

own imagining. 

Would you like to hear the author read this Hybrid Poem to you?

Jesuit Clappers

photograph by Totomai Martinez

Jesuit Clappers

“Do not ask for whom the bell tolls--it tolls for thee.

--Ernest Hemingway.

I’ll never forget

              the weekend I spent in the 

                             town of Hilongus, on the southern

                                         end of Leyte, in the Philippines, facing

                             west toward the Camotas Sea,

               not far from where the Battle of Leyte Gulf,

perhaps the largest naval battle in history,

was fought in WWII.

I was fascinated with Hilongus,

because even in this day & age

                       it remains more of a large village, with

                       a spirited population of 50,000, more than

                       half of which seemed to be children, as

                                   the 38,000 Catholics enjoyed being fruitful. There are

                       no skyscrapers,

                       no shopping malls,

                       no big banks,

                       no big city amenities.

I happened to be there on the weekend

just before Christmas when they held 

their Annual Town Fiesta, lots

               of fire works wheels, fire crackers,

               parades, street vendors, & music everywhere;

                          with a lot of drinking, gambling, & cockfighting going on.

I came specifically to visit

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church,

a grand tourist attraction,

& an important symbol of civic pride. 

             They adore sharing the legend of Mama Mary, 

             whose apparition, they say, once stood holding

             a flaming sword to protect the church from the ravages

             of the pirates of Mindanao.

Actually, I am a church bell tower fanatic,

                 & the great octagonal church bell tower there,

                                constructed by the secular patron

                                 Don Leonardo Celis-Diaz, is now

                  re-plastered with Portland cement.      It stands alone,

                  separate from the other structures in the complex.

At three stories high, it is reputed

             to be the tallest bell tower ever built

                      by the Spaniards. The tower belfry sports

                                    eight narrow arches, some with doors

                                                    on them, as ivy & sapling trees sprout

                                     from the centuries old cracks.

                      The tall cross atop the tower dome,

             is but an outline of a crucifix,

its holy center open to the sky. 

The beautiful church itself was

completely rebuilt. Its huge front door

used to double as a gate to a bastioned 

Spanish fortification.               Behind the church, some of the 

                        old fort’s walls, & part of an ancient convent         is extant,

                        & it is now converted to a tourist’s Devotion Garden--

reminding me of the first time I visited the Alamo

                        in downtown San Antonio, surprised that it has

                        been converted into a book store & gift shop, finding

               myself much happier visiting the crumbling movie set

         constructed for the John Wayne movie, THE ALAMO,

located on a movie ranch outside Bracketville, TX., which

just somehow seemed more authentic,

                                     more interesting,

                                     more complete,

                                     more historical. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Miller Time

image from https://etsy.com 

Miller Time

“Science never solves a problem without

creating ten more.”--George Bernard Shaw

A Miller’s Dozen

Harold lies smiling

because he was included

in the holidays.

*************************************

Revealed partially between

the bars, the mighty courtyard

shined verdant. 

**************************************

How far must we

journey to escape

the terrible thirst?

**************************************

Granted, castles may crumble,

but their bones

laugh at time.

****************************************

The several gables sported

new glass, becoming

cumulus mirrors. 

********************************************

A driftwood throne, perhaps

for forgotten kings

or wayward princes.

********************************************

Small town water towers

have become scarce

as covered bridges. 

************************************

Logging trucks can become

yard art, left

to the elements.

**************************************

Clever pipelines can

masquerade as actual bridges

over oblivious water.

****************************************

Where is the child

that belongs to 

this abandoned shoe?

****************************************

The alligators still lurk

beneath our streets,

making their plans. 

****************************************

Passementerie adorning

classic wrought iron always

requires an image capture. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

Kudos to brother poet, Brian Miller who created the Ten Word Form.

All images accompanying the poems by Glenn Buttkus.

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Call Me Blackthorne

image from deskridge.deviant art.

Call Me Blackthorne

“The secret of my influence has always been

that it remained secret.”--Salvador Dali.

If, 47 years ago,        something took a whole year to create,

                   emerging at around 100,000 words,

                   but nobody seemed interested in it--

so no one read it in it’s entirety, 

                         & now for decades

                         it has sat patiently on

                         dusty shelves in my many domiciles,

              it’s brilliance unappreciated,

              it’s uniqueness unshared,

              it’s characters unknown,

              it’s literary heart hardening,

              it’s hidden emotions unfelt,

would it not fully inhabit the realm of a Secret?

It all started on the California desert,

when I was stationed at NAS Miramar.         The base theater only charged 

                                   a quarter, & they changed the movie

                              every day, so at that time

                    they screened a hell of a lot

          of Spaghetti Westerns; there 

were hundreds of them in the late 60’s,

          & like many others I became fascinated

                     by their dreamlike artifice, taking a Hollywood

                               staple, a cinematic classic genre, & burlesquing it,

where all the gunshots sounded tinny

& phony, kind of like                    the silly sound of fake pistols firing

                     on those Kellogg’s Sugar Pops

                     1950’s TV commercials, when

                                                    they put those kiddy Western stars

                      on the boxes, you remember, like

Guy Madison, Andy Devine, Gene Autry, William Boyd, & Roy Rogers--

                      reminding me about how excited we Western

                                                    freaks all became in the late 50’s

                      when the Adult Western Shows 

took over all the channels, ruled the airwaves for a long time, when

James Arness, Clint Walker, James Garner, Richard Boone, Dale Robertson

& Ward Bond                              began to take plots “seriously”.

The Westerns filmed in Italy & Spain

                                                                were like a reinvention of the genre,

where the horse tails were all too long,

the stage coaches were all too small,

& the same 20 voice over actors             seemed to do the lip synching 

                        on all the movies, lots of heightened absurd

                        violence, grittier sex, incredible musical scores,

blatant do-overs of every classic Japanese Samurai movie ever made;

& there I was, ready to write my first novel, 

                         deciding to use the Spaghetti West

                                  as a springboard, using graphic violence & sex,

                                               well researched weaponry,

                                                            & existential components.

When I first returned to college in 1969,

I showed the manuscript to several

of my college English professors,

the younger guys who wrote paperback quickie novels

in the summer, often using a Nom de Plume--

                 & to a man, they were flabbergasted, blown away.

                 “It’s like Vonnegut or Bukowski wrote a Western, just

                               completely outrageous, violating every principle

                               or parameter of the genre. The Western Writers

                               of America would have had apoplexy if they read it.”

I decided to consider their vitriolic 

protests & criticisms as high praise,            for I had succeeded in writing

                               something that was both authentic

                               & unconventional; fuck them.

                   I returned to it every few years

                          to reacquaint myself with its mystique. 

                   As a film buff, cinephile, actor, teacher, & poet,

over the years I have begun

to feel braver & more innovative,         so much so that I even

                   created a new poetic form--Cinemagenic.

The nearly forgotten manuscript 

began first to whisper                    & then call out to me

                       each time I passed it on its shelf:

Hey, Slick, here’s your chance

to begin to share some of me, 

& to finally make that movie of yours,

the one in your head as you wrote me.         “Damn, why not,” I thought.

A joyous virile exciting process

began to emerge, where upon

I would use a tiny bit of the manuscript

with each poem, & break it up into episodes,

                           into pages of a screenplay, & yet

                   something leagues beyond a mere screenplay,

a volatile verbalization of every nuance of the production,

my movie,

my poem,

my Frankenstein,       A Movie of the Mind.           So I began

                                   the labor of love, transforming my manuscript

into poetic filmmaking,

31 episodes to date,

with hundreds more to come;

but like a coy maiden, 

I shall not give up all my secrets at once, no,

just a little tease at a time,

keeping them hungry for more. 

                                                                                

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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