Then There Were Five

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Then There Were Five

“Behold the number five is at hand. Grab it & shake

it & harness its power.”--Jacod Kintz.

I.

A child’s portal

can be a secret garden,

Comanche encampment,

or saucer to Mars.

II.

An iron bird perched

on the haunches

of a bronze horse,

awaiting reanimation.

III.

No longer in harness

the F600 became content

to host oxidation

& families of mice.

IV.

Concrete flowers gather

moss & lichen

as verdant mantle

& party guests.

V.

Stone crosses are

cemetery stars, enjoying

the role of pious lead

in God’s pencil.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub MTB

Okologie

image from citiesetc.blogspot.com

Okologie

“Do not go gentle into that good night--

rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

--Dylan Thomas.

It is interesting to note

       that Ecology is not synonymous with

              the environment. It is a human science,

                       a serious study of the interactions among

              organisms & their environment, an attempt

        to understand the human in humanity, & how

in just a few thousand years

we managed to ape Oedipus,

ravaging, raping, & polluting

our planetary mother.                      Just a century ago,

                                         the timber, oil, & steel industries

                                 were impervious to the harm they

                     did; just obsessed with the gargantuan

              profits they amassed while focusing only

         on the production of the goods & materials 

that were needed/demanded in order to provide,

                                                            to construct

                                                            to fuel

       a terrible Trojan Horse of progress.

                                 Wake up:

If politics were not practiced out of sheer greed,

if lobbyists were not allowed to buy politicians,

if science was not undermined by the teeming minions

       of close-minded superstitious zealots who practice

       the religions of the world,

if intellect was as attractive as fascist demagoguery,

if love could usurp hate, racism, intolerance & ignorance,

if common sense were more than a forgotten pamphlet

       written by a fiery-eyed Thomas Paine,

then maybe earth would stand a chance, rather than being

consumed & destroyed by the contagious carcinogens of

our own nature,

        maybe the innocent planet could side-step the eminent 

                       perils we continue to perpetuate;

        maybe it could actually heal itself, 

                       could flourish and blossom again,

                      

                       could sustain life,

                       could stave off cumulating extinctions,

                       could reciprocate kindness with matriarchal

                       and maternal affection, & we 

                       could feel safe

                       once more in her arms.

But it sure as hell

does not look like that’s going

to happen tomorrow.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

Blackthorne--Scene 53

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Fifty-Three

Red Riders

“The intruders know who we are and saw that

our house is full.”--Ray Jarosz.

1(overhead wide drone shot) angle over the top of the five riders,

300 yards out from the camp site, moving fast.

2(sound cue) coronet & snare drum.

3(tighten the shot--in slow motion) the tracking across broad horse’s

rumps, muscles rippling, tails high, then back across the broad

shoulders of the mysterious riders.

4(cut to medium wide-shot) the lip of a small rise, angle on a hawk

perched atop some tall sage.

5(sound cue) horse’s hooves.

6(hold the shot) as the riders emerge over the rim with swirling dust

rolling over them, just as the hawk burst into flight.

7(sound cue) hawk’s cry, lots of leather creaking, pounding hooves

over kettle drum.

8(cut to two-shot) Buck & Johnny, their stiff backs to the camera, facing

the oncoming horde.

9(tight two-shot) angle on Johnny: Cocked & loaded, boss.

Buck: Fucking boy rowdy.

10(sound cue) fire popping, dog growling over slide guitar riff.

11(cut to wide shot) as the riders come in full gallop, the sun rising

behind them, their faces in red shadow. They pulled up hard & fast

as their horses snorted, nickered, & pranced-- heaving & steaming.

12(close-up) Buck’s eyes, sizing them up.

13(close-up) Johnny, recognizing all of them, his eyes hardening.

14(voice-over) Buck: The honcho in front has to be Bronson.

15(medium one-shot) The man sat on a golden palomino. His gear

was ornate, not unlike Buck’s--with wide silver-studded stirrups, chest

halter & skirts. He wore a wide-brimmed white hat, with the sides rolled

up perfectly, a stark white shirt that was now alkaline dust smeared, a

thick leather string tie pulled through a silver stallion-head bolo, a weath-

ered dark leather vest, tight brown denims & fancy knee-high well-

polished boots, complete with cruel silver spurs, the rowels still spinning.

16(sound cue) strident piano & huffing harmonica.

17(medium close-up) A .44 Smith & Wessen hung on his left hip, a gentle-

man’s weapon, with carved ivory handle inserts--not made for driving nails

or cracking skulls. Perfect white buckskin gloves covered his small hands. 

He was a big man, nearly as tall as Buck, but heavier, sporting a merchant’s

thick mid-section & pasty pale skin. He was clean shaven, had thick eyebrows,

soot onyx eyes & a prominent Patrician’s nose. 

18(voice-over) Buck: They’d be the gunsels.

19(widen the shot) on Bronson’s left, three wire-thin wranglers

leaned forward over their wide Mexican pommels, their narrowed

eyes jumpy, all in dusty hats, one in a brown sombrero, stovepipe

chaps & old boots--their calloused hands resting on their saddles,

waiting for orders. Two of them were old-timers, wearing vintage

Colt .45’s, with gray stubble on their chins & skin burned dark

from honest labor. One was a kid, in an Eastern derby, with blond 

peach fuzz on his rosy cheeks, wearing a long-barreled Navy 

Colt .36.

20(sound cue) French horns & cello.

21(close-up) Buck looks to the right.

22(cut to the right) angle on a very tall lean fellow on a coal

gelding, whose icy green eyes waited for Buck to notice him.

He wore a prominent gun belt buckle, pounded gold with a silver

“B” in the center, Buck was aware of his tenseness, coiled like

a compressed spring. His horse moved, but he didn’t.

23(close-up) the man’s intense green eyes never leaving Buck’s.

24(widen the shot) His right hand was gloveless, the shirt sleeve

folded back once, his long fingers hovering over a Lightning Colt .38

that was snugly tied down to his right leg--a self-cocker like Buck’s

Thunderer. He wore a black hat with the front folded up slightly,

a lizard skin hat band, a snug-fitting yellow Mexican silk shirt, a 

large black neckerchief draped out over his right shoulder, gray

pin-striped pants tucked into his boots.

25(close-up) He had a thin face, with long dark hair, & a well-

trimmed mustache & swath under his lower lip, darkish circles

under his piercing eyes.

26(voice-over) Buck: Now this piece of work has to be Thor.

27(wide-shot) the riders sitting tense, their horses side-stepping,

neighing & lifting a front leg while swishing their tails. An awkward 

minute passed as

28(the camera pans) from Thor past Bronson to the wranglers.

29(cut to two-shot) Buck & the Eagle more than ready.

              Finally someone spoke.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Lamentation

painting by sandro botticelli.

Lamentation

“If it were possible to cure evils by lamentation, or to raise

the dead with tears, then gold would be less valuable than

weeping.”--Sophocles.

Do birds at first light call you Lenny,

or do you demand that they warble Leonard,

          as sleep must be combed out of your tangled curls,

          as the uniqueness of your finger whorls

                     tap out another hit tune, craft words, and

                     rustle up raw uninhibited rhythms, just as

          the night birds fade, & the birds of dawn

          on their wire, in their way, entreat you to

let go of those dark dream harpies,

to allow the healing light of a new day to

          teach you how to dance

          butt-naked in the Now?

Why is it that the first thing you always hear are the crisis criers,

           the media whores & TV News hosts telling you, yet again

                   that somewhere on this shrunken earth, the hideous

                             hounds of war have devoured,

                                                             murdered,

                                                             butchered,

                                                             imprisoned,

                                                             exploded &

                                                             attacked the innocent;

                                                             too damn many teddy bears

                                                    beheaded, feet still wearing shoes

                                                torn from legs, tiny pink fingers piling

                                          up like bloody boned sausages, & festive

                                   sidewalk cafe caesar salads sizzle with C-4 & 

                              glops of terrorist’s entrails, because the holy dove

                       is plucked clean, featherless, shackled. captured, then

             set free, only to be caught again--never ever to soar for more

than a timid instant on its broken wings. 

Dear God, these bloody sins            occur         on your holy day

as cathedral bells chime out             across       the battlements,

but Lord, even they are digital           now,         as the great clappers

                                

                               in the shining stone towers are not 

                               clanging any more, as the behemoth

                               silver bells hang flaccid & useless,

                               heralding nothing, just as golden

                               mosques come alive, their loud

                                speakers extolling: Allah Akbar, 

                                & you can’t help but wonder which

                                face God wears when he hears the news?

You groan & moan that your time

of dissent is all but spent during

those turbulent decades when it

was you who carried the signs,

skipped over all the land mines

& faced SWAT steel bayonets, fire

hoses, terrible tasers & rubber bullets--always so sure that someone

                                                              would hear, & care, & change,

                                                              not just rearrange the sainted

                                                              structures of political power;

not just busting skulls with oak

batons, gassing the crowds into

tears, hopes into fears, transforming

marches into melees                             as the drums of peace are stilled,

                                                                   the chants for freedom are killed,

                                                              as the ballads became ballistic & every

                                                                   note of love attained refugee status,

                                                              as rifles rearranged the beat, & sirens

                                                                   screamed the new red refrains.

So nothing to do but sit on the floor, sipping strong coffee & smoking

Camels while frantically strumming your weeping guitar, letting the 

charnel churn of emotion be redirected into poetry, lyrics, & magnificent

music, finding freedom within your own tenderness, thrusting it with

love out of your open window, out into the terrible world, where it will

sail beautifully on the winds of fire but for a planetary moment, before

dropping unnoticed into a superfluous heap beneath the deep bronze

cracks in the old bells of liberty that peal no more.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

Written as a response to Leonard Cohen's ANTHEM, where 

There is a crack in everything;

That's how the light gets in.

                                                             

                               

Le Dance De Zorba

image from pinterest.com

Le Dance De Zorba

“Dance? Did you say dance, Boss?”

--Alexis Zorba.

Before

I was twenty,

to impress

a Greek girl,              

                                  I took her

                                  to see

                      

                ZORBA, THE GREEK.

We loved

that scene

        where the two

                  burly men on

        a beach, wrapped

arms and line-

danced away

                            their sadness

                and their madness

                            in the white sand.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub

for the 44-word challenge.

Accelerando

image from quazoo.com

Accelerando

“If you don’t breathe, cry out, or sing through your

writing--then don’t write it.”--Anais Nin

When your Muse wakes you from a nap,

it’s not a trap;

for your dreams need to be captured,

your heart enraptured.

Your bold pen wants to be brilliant,

the thoughts resilient.

Words will shine like bright pigment,

inner voice recorded in print,

your ideas burnished in tint.

It’s not a trap--your heart enraptured, the thoughts resilient.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

where De has us writing the Ovillejo.

Two Minutes

image from creekside5thgrade.wordpress.com

Two Minutes

“I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near

to the central idea of the momentous occasion, in two hours,

as you did in two minutes.”--Edward Everett.

Damn, I seem to be taking forever

                       to get over this protracted illness.

            Leave it to me to come down with

                       a mild case of smallpox.

                                   Being feverish & weak as a lame dog

                          with a constant raging headache is bad

                     enough, but it’s the hellish shingles that

             really chaps my butt--literally; what do the

        doctors call it--yes, a vesicular rash. I swear,

it’s more like a mild case of leprocy. 

        Lying abed, I have a lot of time to think about

              this quagmire of bloody conflict, of sons versus

                      fathers that our beloved America has become

                                   in 1864. I’m still reeling with emotion

over Gettysburg last year. Dear God, over 50,000 men killed,

wounded or missing in a three day battle; but I do have to chuckle

over the political rumor that I scribbled my speech on a scrap of

paper while on the train to Pennsylvania. For Christ’s sake, I pride

myself on carefully crafting all my speeches, & that address was

no exception. It was fully conceived & written out before I set foot

on that smoking brute of motion sickness.

I knew I was becoming ill on the way up there that morning of

      November 18th. I recall telling John Hay that I felt fatigued

               & weak. Lord, the next day at the ceremony I thought

                         that windbag Eddie Everett would never finish

                                 his bilious oratory; reminded me a lot of

                                          Steven Douglas; quite the stark con-

                                 trast to my two-minute commentary, deliver-

                         ed rapidly to keep from passing out. Bill Seward

                  told me later that I was pale as a ghost. that I looked

       sad & haggard, but hell’s bells, who wouldn’t be? But surely

this illness exacerbated my natural melancholia. Everett wrote me

                               that my little speech was a grand success, so

                               I suppose It wasn’t a total failure. It did surprise

                               me that presently it is being lauded as a grand

                               & significant speech, & I’ve had to make five

                               copies of it for posterity--yet we can count on

                               the Democrats to belittle it. In the Chicago Times

                               it was published: The cheek of every American 

must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat & dishwatery utterances

of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the

President of the United States.

I will tell you one thing, with me being laid up like this,

it’s glaringly evident to me that Hamlin is too much of

a milk-toast VP to ever be President. The country needs

a stronger man. When I get back on my feet, I think I’ll

approach Andy Johnson about the job--he’s got fortitude

& intelligence in spades. 

When I was swept into the White House in 1860, who would have

expected those 7 Southern states to form the Confederacy & then

fire on Ft. Sumter; complete hubris & madness. It was like pulling

molars to get the Emancipation proclamation through Congress,

& it was a minor miracle to add the 13th Amendment to the Consti-

tution outlawing slavery. I am only 55 years of age, but that is on

the outside; on the inside I feel like 100. God in Heaven, when will

this cursed war ever end?

Brother against brother,

civil war is ever bloody

disaster; no winners.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

Ice Blossoms

Ice Blossoms

The mysterious & beautiful snow flowers of Asia are like

flora from a fantasy. Unlike most plants, the quince blossoms

are resistant to cold, & can survive temperatures plunging

below freezing, can push themselves out of leafless branches

like pink fairies wearing snow bonnets. There are stories about

people who ate too much of the quince fruit, & nearly died

as the seeds converted to cyanide gas. 

My friend, a master gardener, claims that most quince trees

blossom in the spring, but that they can blossom up to mid-

winter, illustrating their hardy & unique nature. He said that

these ancient trees, that bear a golden yellow fruit that looks

like a pear, were cultivated even before pear & apple orchards.

He claimed the fruit is ripest in late autumn. Eaten raw, it is

pithy & very tart, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. Cooked,

the flesh turns red, & can be used in jams, or to enhance other

fruits, much like rhubarb. They are not happy growing in North

America, so show up mostly as ornamental plants. 

When we cultivate

plants from antiquity, we

will find uniqueness. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub