image from wikipedia.com
Christ in the Empty Chair
“Christmas is built upon a paradox--that a homeless
birth should be celebrated in every home.”
--Leah Hall
With vaccine cards and masks in hand,
my family gathers from all points to
celebrate Christmas together for the first time
in two years. It will be at
my home. It will bustle with nine
grand-children, tall tales, hugs and holiday
cheer. Down with chaos, up with Love.
Glenn Buttkus
Kwansaba
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
image from pinterest.com
Heartspur Sunrise
“You can only appreciate the miracle, the gift of a
sunrise after you have lived in the darkness.”
--Anonymous.
Aging
is a blessed curse,
having its own yin and yang.
It becomes a room
with thousands of doors,
and every day, one or more
will not open for you.
It’s
about being starlorn
at high noon
in a city that’s covered
in a starless night sky.
It’s
about chronic amentalio
because parents and friends
have passed before you
and neither snapshot
nor portrait is enough.
It’s
also the warm lisolia
of polishing the wooden stock
on your grandfather’s .30-.06,
where dozens of family shoulders
have worn a loving niche in it.
It’s
the tugging heartmoor
of driving through the city
you grew up in,
and getting lost
while searching for
one of the houses you lived in.
It’s
the torrent of heartspur
tears that well up
as you watch
THE WIZARD OF OZ,
because you and your mother
used to watch it annually.
It’s
the harrowing aphasia
that haunts you daily
as Confederate flags
and Nazi SS pins
are flaunted openly
and Civil War seems to loom.
It’s
the irritating etherness
that you experience at family gatherings,
while watching your happy grandchildren,
as you wonder how in hell
will they adjust to a planet in revolt?
Who will succumb to drugs,
who will have a bad marriage,
and who will die young?
And it’s
the barbed kenopsia
that lurks in the air
when you walk down Main Street
and more than half
of the Mom & Pop businesses
are boarded up.
Is it the new Mall
or Covid that is
responsible?
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
image from pinterest.com
Tangled Tinsel
“Grief is a room without doors--but somehow with its
tinsel, Christmas finds a way in.”--Simon Van Booy
For some reason we
always called tinsel icicles.
it was the last thing
to add on the tree.
It was like icing on a
cake; nothing tawdry.
But gold fillings in
someone’s mouth, that bugs me, and
I do not know why.
No shit.
Glenn Buttkus
Quadrille
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
image from westernartamerica.com
Blackthorne
Cinemagenic 147
Ballet Of Beasts
“In May 2011 I posted this poem for OLN. Folks
were a bit perplexed by it. Perhaps today it can
be recognized as a poetic extension of the novel’s
denouement.”--Me.
Now he could see himself
landing lightly in a pool of quiet dust,
firing his pistol and his sawed-off
as he touched the ground,
dropping his guns immediately,
leaping back into the thick air,
lunging across a shaft of golden light,
as he heard hooves;
then he became hooves
pounding the hard packed earth,
millions of unshod hooves beating
against the face of the prairie;
then he was on the Appaloosa
and Johnny Eagle was on White Bob
galloping in the musky midst
of an angry ocean of humps and horns
a ballet of beasts dancing at quarter speed,
time condensed within the clenched fist
of that dangerous moment,
as massive muscles rippled slowly,
the undulating transfer of meat
into extreme slow-motion.
and soon a slower visual realm still
until flaring nostrils and panicked eyes
became frozen, just before
the cacophony of gunfire--
Sharps, Spencers, Winchesters and Colts,
their crackling crescendo washing over
the cries from the herd,
as that great horde of hair
began crashing into the tall grass
skidding in blood, breaking bones
as collisions piled up, and at the bottom
the leaders were dying
in a cataclysmic chorus of death songs,
and out of the blood mist runs Buck, on foot,
making long strides toward the purple
mountains, with bison death breath thick
and visceral, clinging sticky to his soul,
but not alone in the race, becoming a trio,
his father on one side of him,
and the Eagle on the other;
for a time they moved along together,
matching each other’s stride, running
as one six-legged creature
as the rifles barked on,
the running barely touching
the viscous viscus of cosmic pain,
rifle blasts still thundering in his tympanum
when he heard his patriarch fall, but
he did not slow or turn to the old man,
for he had to run on, pumping his arms,
the Hunter and the Eagle fleet as antelopes,
hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, tearing
up clods as they sprinted, their faces blue,
their lungs aching, and then the Indian went
down, landing lightly like a fluttering feather,
a beautiful soft death. Buck’s eyes blazed
with tears as he ran on, his big hands reaching
for the distant mountains, pushing himself
until there was only the running, and
the running had no heart, no spirit, until
he was overcome with a terrible fatigue,
and the race for the red horizon faded,
as the murderous lightning of a thousand
rifle discharges rolled over him;
the guns went silent, and the sky became
a black funnel, his eyes lost their focus,
and his lungs turned to stone, so very
quiet as the reeds fluted the air,
and the grass hugged him farewell,
until he was full stop,
and he finally turned
to face the horns.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
image from wikipedia.com
Six Barrels
“It occurred to me that I could invent a machine-
gun that through its rapidity of fire could enable one
man to perform as much battle duty as a hundred,
thus saving American lives.”--Richard Jordan Gatling.
Back in 1861,
Richard Gatling invented
the first functional machine gun.
It had a cyclic
six-barreled design.
It was hand-cranked,
and as the barrels rotated
they cooled and reloaded
automatically.
It could fire
more than 400 .30 caliber rounds
per minute, and it never
overheated.
Later, some models
had ten barrels,
used .45-70 cartridges,
and could fire 700 rounds
per minute, using
two feeder clips,
one for firing,
and one for reloading.
The gun was used by the
Union Army during the Civil War.
General Custer had access
to two Gatling guns,
and decided not to use them.
The Gun was used
by the American Army
for 45 years.
One of the most famous
victories it facilitated
was the Battle of San Juan Hill,
during the Spaniksh-American War.
Lt. John Parker commanded
a 4-gun battery
of ten-barreled Gatlings,
that could rotate at
700 rpm, and could fire
more than 800 rounds per minute.
Parker used the guns
as cover fire as the
Rough Riders charged
up the hill. After
the hill was taken,
three guns were hauled
to the top, just in time
before a Spanish attack
to retake the hill.
600 Spanish soldiers
started up, and only 40
survived’
The Gatlings fired
18,000 rounds
in 8 minutes.
Today
modern troops use an
electric-motor driven
rotary cannon.
It takes a strong man
to use one.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
image from timelife.com
Hoovervilles
Today mass homelessness is more prevalent than
ever. Instead of shacks made of wood from pallets
and crates, cardboard and scraps of metal, we find
filthy and tattered tents, old cars and RV’s as
domiciles. Encampments seem to sprout under every
bridge and along city streets, city parks, and business
parking lots. I see the mentally ill, drug addicts, and
petty criminals, but I also see whole families living
on the streets.
What’s the answer? The poet in me is aware that I
dress in their stories patterned and purple as night,
thick and muggy as cold fog at dawn, hungry and
maligned in the underbelly of America. I witness
both desperation and an infestation of plague fleas.
Covid and ill heath prevent me from any activism.
I’m stranded along the freeway watching cars collide
and lives being lost.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Prosery
