Thursday, December 15, 2016

Blackthorne--Scene 55


image borrowed from ebsqart.com


Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Fifty-Five

Alacrity

“So, in the way of writing without thinking, thou hast
a strange alacrity in sinking.”--Thomas Sackville.

1(wide crane shot) behind the five riders, with Buck 
& the Eagle facing off against them.
2(sound cue) Cheewa growling.
3(medium close-up) One of the wranglers : 
I may have to shoot that damn dog.
4(overhead drone shot ) high above the seven men,
then descending down toward them. A buzzard flew
across the frame half-way down.
4(sound cue) wings flapping over seed rattle.
5(two shot) Johnny’s flushed face & Buck’s knitted 
brows.
6(medium close-up) Buck : Your land, you say, since when?
7(sound cue) piano chord--off key.
8(medium close-up) Bronson : Ever since I’ve been running
my herds out here.
9(tight close-up) Buck : Just how long has that been 
going on?
10(two-shot) Over Buck’s shoulder, Bronson : Hell, it must 
be over a year now.
11(voice-over) Thor : More like two years.
Bronson: Yeah, I think you”re right, brother.
12(four-shot) Johnny : As far as we knew, all this was open 
range. Thor spat : Now you know different !
13(sound cue) saxophone & snare drum.
14(medium close-up) Johnny Eagle : Alright, gents, how’s it 
going to be?--his voice was like a taunt cello string, his 
cheeks fluttering, his body one tight muscle.
15(medium wide shot) Johnny & Buck with their backs 
to the camera, as an awkward second creeps by.
16(tight close-up) Buck flicked off the snap on his holster 
holding his sawed-off side arm.
17(camera pans smoothly, swiftly) over the faces of the five 
riders; they all saw him.
18(medium solo-shot) Bronson rose up slowly in this stirrups,
the fancy leather creaking, crossed his right leg over the neck 
of his palomino, then leaned on his elbows, staring intensely
at Buck, before smiling broadly : Well, Christ on a sawhorse. 
let’s all take a breath here. I’m sure that you boys worked 
real hard collecting these shabby ass jackrabbits.
19(close-up) a prairie dog stuck its head up from his burrow,
chirped, & ducked back down out of sight.
20(medium close-up) You god damn rights we did !! snapped
Johnny, his anger smoldering in his eyes.
21(two-shot) over Johnny’s shoulder as Bronson calmly
continued to smile, the man on the high pommel, in control--
Now I want you fellows to understand, I am still hoping to 
keep this visit in the “warning” category.
22(sound cue) French horn & banjo.
23(tight close-up) Bronson : The only problem is, it just 
would not sit right with my men if I was to let you off Scot-
free.
24(two-shot) Buck & the Eagle stood in silence--waiting.
25(close-up) Bronson : I’ll tell you what, in order to make
everybody happy, how about this--you give me the 
Appaloosa--and thank-you by the way for capturing him, my 
own crew couldn’t get it done--and for the present I’ll just 
pretend not to see those other jugheads.
26(close up) Johnny, through clenched teeth : How about this
--you eat shit & live.
27(medium wide crane shot) Bronson remained in the saddle,
but the other four men rose up in unison & slowly 
stepped off their mounts.
28(sound cue) muted coronet bleats.
29(two-shot) Bronson: Not a smart play, Johnny.
Thor : You fucking breed, we could take all the horses, and 
then stake your sad butt on a fire ant hill
30( quick-cut, angle on Buck) I wouldn’t do that if I were 
you.
31(sound cue) snare drum bap & seed rattle.
32(medium wide shot) Thor turned toward Buck, his hands 
on his hips just above his gun belt, his voice low & calm
: I don’t know you, Hoss, but believe me, unless you want to die 
today,  you need to stay out of things that are not your concern. 
This business is between this damn Indian & my brother.
33(two-shot) over Thor’s shoulder--Buck : I’m sorry, fella, but
you’re all mixed up.
34(medium close-up) Bronson : What are you jawing about?
35(close-up) Buck : Johnny Eagle works for me. These are 
my horses. He can’t give you anything. You need to deal 
with me.
36(three-shot) Bronson, to Johnny : Is this true?
Buck set his jaw, & the Eagle nodded yes, eying the
Rifle near his bed roll, & flicking his thumb across the 
sharp edge of his throwing knife.                          


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Time Travelers


image borrowed from monolithic.com


Time Travelers

“We could warp space-time so much that you
could go in a rocket & return before you set out.”
--Stephen Hawking

Quantum physics
meets
meta-physics
on a gossamer thin thread
of time--                   
                              a transparent throbbing vein,
                            shaped like the living split
                          between the left and right brain.
                              

                              Beyond the veil, time is
                        reputed to be superfluous,
                    where past-present & future
                  are One;       perhaps linear,
                                       perhaps circular,
                                       perhaps amorphous.

Beyond our tiny galaxy,            a cosmos within
a billion-billion universes          a cosmos within
gyrate like hungry pinworms    a cosmos within
devouring rotting flesh,             a cosmos within
like mountains of granite          a pea,       within
being crushed into infinite        God’s half acre--
grains of sand. like munching   beyond 
molecules in a dust bunny--      comprehension,
                                                  beyond
                              imagination, beyond thought;

those stars behind & beyond those dead ones we
see in our night skies, because we are barely able
to cope with the notion that travel outside of our
galaxy will require leaving our body behind in some
sort of cryonic stasis, embarking on a soul journey
after we learn to fold time & penetrate black holes,
expanding our minuscule consciousness--also
consider that

traveling beyond the beyond will only be the
beginning of our cosmic selves, & most certainly
we’ll need poets along on the journey(s) to insure
that posterity will accurately chronicle the 
tumultuous tale of humanity turning itself 
inside-out, to witness Time being filleted 
like a fat flounder, split open to the white
meat, probed, smoked & deboned.

We must become time
travelers in order to be

at one with our gods.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Monday, December 12, 2016

Night of the Reaper


image borrowed from dlyonsart.blogspot.com


Night of the Reaper

“Believe that love is the strongest thing in the
world; stronger that hate, evil, or death--and
believe further that Love was born in
Bethlehem 2000 years ago.”--Henry Van Dyke.

A decade ago, my wife & I were visiting her mother
in Texas, My mother-in-law was 80, but still mentally
sharp. Three nights before Christmas, we were playing
pinochle, & she was gleefully winning. My father-in-
law was staying in a Rehab facility. Six months before,
he’d fallen asleep at the wheel of his truck & struck a
tree. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, so he was launched
through the windshield & suffered traumatic brain injury.
He had always been a kind man, but he had turned
mean in the midst of his delirium. My sweet mother-in-law
could not adjust to his consummate cruelty toward her
& the medical staff.

Suddenly my sister-in-law showed up, telling us that my
father-in-law had died an hour earlier. We immediately
caravanned up to the facility & viewed the body; his great
chest stilled, a small smile on his lips. I watched grief on
the faces of the family wrestle with relief--hoping that
clarity had been granted to him on his journey, and that
cruelty had to hunt for a new residence.

A funeral for
Christmas bestowed mixed blessings;

so unique for each.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Thursday, December 8, 2016

The City Stirs


image from fineartsamerica.com


The City Stirs

“Nature is a petrified magic city.”--Novalis

Sirens awaken me alltissmo & blaring;
perhaps     a meat wagon,   the police,
              or a firetruck--          charging
toward some calamity, deliberate and
              bellicoso.

A canto of pigeons coo on the edge of
the roof, all dolce & delicato--quite the
contrast to my Mickey Mouse alarm
clock blasting its brassy bell aria. I silence
it with a swift colpugno.

              Foghorns in the harbor
              bleat abafando in the
              distance. My tongue tastes metallic as
                             I burp pepperoni pizza, greasy
                             and abbandono.
               Some truck with twin
               stacks bellows & spews
               as it labors through its
                              crunching chorus of gears, before
                              fading con calando.

As I brew coffee,
     needing to consume
         caffeine devoto, I tap
            my fingers to the onerous
                  barbaro beat of a twin jackhammer
                       duet, busily reducing concrete to a
                          acciaccato dust pudding.

Mere blocks from the office, I move adante through
the´cacophony of the crowds crescendo, untouched,
nearly invisible, finding their frowns & epithets capricco,
the white noise within me fully abandono, but only in
the security of the elevator does my heartbeat return
to abattuta.
                          The city awakens
                           con allegrezza, as I

                           grasp joy in fermata.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Beauty Rises


image by glenn buttkus


Beauty Rises

“The future belongs to those who believe in the
beauty of their dreams.”--Eleanor Roosevelt.

Beauty is transcendent, 
                illusionary,
                eternal,
                sadness,
                triumphant,
                momentary, &
                ecstasy.         It can be body art, garish, eclectic
                                tattoos that use flesh as a canvas,
                           a fatal fad, a moment’s folly or love
                      in the rapture of bloom, that may lose
                  its luster as fashion becomes altered
              by cascading, tumultuous decades.

Those people who are born gorgeous as 
             models. stared at by all, once they
                  override their conceits, can come to
                        lament their beauty, often wishing to
                                 merely be an anonymous participant
                                        in the crowded landscape, rather
                                        than something akin to alabaster
                                        on a bronze pedestal;

But it is Nature, in all its guises, whether in a forested glen
swarming with golden & black Monarchs, or atop verdant
foothills at the feet of a fire mountain in early morning, 
while wild strawberry light slides across ermine glaciers,
with Mandarin orange clouds hanging like a general’s 
epaulets on the shoulders of the peak, or at a black beach
during a tropical sunset while the sea’s white caps frost the
smooth tops of infinite rows of waves & frenzied gulls pick
at the stringy pink flesh within yellow crab shells--where we
discover God’s living palette--

and finally, true beauty 
becomes the earnest appreciation
of aging, decay, and oxidation;
midst rotting wood, peeling paint
& rusting metal--where we 
re-evaluate a mature lover’s body,
though no longer hard-muscled,
but still the wondrous encasement
of the loving glow from their eyes,
the tenderness of their touch,
and the undying loyalty, sacrifice,
accommodation & reciprocity that
inhabits every fiber of their essence.

Beauty emerges from
every corner of our life.
resplendent to each. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub



                                 

Monday, December 5, 2016

Charred


image from hd.wallpaperswide.com


Charred

“Only the Charred Council--not angels or demons, could
hold the warring factions at bay.”--from the Darksiders,

When char replaces flesh
and bleaches bone black,
fire scars burn deep--

beyond reconstructive surgery,
beyond recognition,
beyond humanity,

where upon the bark,
protoplasm, pulp and sinew,
sentinel and soul,

are converted to
first bright and
then dark energy--

when
cremation
obliterates

the creation.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Q44