Dark Man Awaits

image borrowed from bing

Dark Man Awaits

“The signs of the times signal us that

the Rapture is near--that the final sequence

of events could unfold at any moment.

--Paul  Boyer

If this planet is truly going to hell,

where is the damn hand basket?

Open your eyes.

Do you not notice

that we are surrounded

by religious, cult, & political hypocrisy,

by Catholic celibacy that twists trusted priests 

into dimorphic pedophiles,

by suicide bombers dispersing death,

scattering bodies like dead leaves

wherever the innocent shop or gather,

by embedded Islamic Mimids parroting

Koranic vocalizations as they flip the red switches

on their C-4 vests in order to transport their drab souls

into imagined perfect orchards of peace,

where myriads of virgins flutter,

where murder imitates honor,

where zeal invades reason,

by omnivoric Genera that wholly worship

consumption, favoring it over conservation,

by anonymous probing fingers that hoard

terra-bites of distinctive data on every one

of us as we busily conduct the domesticity of our days,

by modified media sound bites that often seem

barely associated with “truth”--that much too elusive

specter we often overlook or cannot see with its

translucent flesh and pink albinistic eyes?

So where is the vehicle of our escape,

our valve that maintains our sanity,

our release from the accepted madness,

our guide through the fiscal cliffs & slippery slopes?

Will the solution be messianic or demonic?

Will it appear before the oceans rise so high

that America will become Atlantis?

I love the sound of a gadfly 

in the morning.

It sounds like

wailing.

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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All We Are Saying Is

image borrowed from bing

All We Are Saying Is

“What difference does it make to the dead,

orphans and the homeless, whether the

mad destruction is wrought under the name

of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty

or democracy?--Mahatma Ghandi

Veteran’s Day is almost upon us, 

giving us another opportunity to fully

reflect on the current state of chaos

in the human heart,

as War moves perilously about the planet

like a rogue cancer, never actually healed,

just deterred, redirected, or camouflaged.

Ever since I finally allowed my uncle

to reduce the work force by one,

I have taken full possession of those

beauteous gifts of recall and regret,

as I am reminded constantly that man

remains the most lethal of all species,

cutting the throats of their brothers,

building more efficient weapons,

churning the oceans into cesspools,

melting the ice caps like discarded popsicles

on hot pavement, forever worshipping

those bloody curs of Mars rather than

the loving wings of doves, and

all I can seem to do is burst into a torrent

of old man’s tears, soaking the scars on my cheeks.

Jesus, I weep

while watching movies, 

Hallmark commercials,

my grandchildren at play, 

my wife’s authentic orgasms,

and I really pry open the saline flood gates

when the techno-screens all about me

are besmirched with thousands

of flag-draped coffins as we continue

to sacrifice our beloved children

on the angry red alters of patriotism,

knowing full well that their innocence

was actually consumed by 

the piety of the petroleum gods,

the rancor of robber barons,

the manipulation of the media--

where distorted spinning propaganda

is served up steaming fresh

and continuously spewed out

like uncountable droplets of contagion.

I remember vividly what my buddies

learned to say in order to get through

each day while serving in the maelstrom

of Viet Nam--

“It don’t mean nothin’”

because, of course,

it meant

everything. 

I do recall the young man I once was,

tough as Mailer,

eccentric as Vonnegut,

wild as Kerouac,

verbose as Faulkner,

struggling with eddies of ego,

anvils of angst, mostly holding back

my emotions because god damn it

I was no candy-assed faggot

cry baby,

now grateful that the foolishness of youth

has vanished and I realize that I have earned

the right to allow the wisdom of my tears

to flow copiously over the wounds of this world;

even though the whole of mankind

are but particles of sand in the magnificent

muscles of the cosmic mollusk,

we must realize, must learn,

that we do have the capacity

to spread our arms wide open

in a universal gesture of peace,

and we need to ready ourselves

to conjure up and share the richness

of all the colors within us

to perfectly match the loving music

of the day we must create.

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets--Poetics

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Obama Wept

image borrowed from google

Obama Wept

I love it

when I get up

in the morning and find out

that President Barack Obama

actually wept

the day after re-election,

while in Chicago

addressing his youthful staff

of several hundred;

the man is a real mensch,

saying,

“The most important thing

you need to know

is that your journey

is just beginning.”

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on G-Man's Flash 55

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Burmese Bright

image borrowed from bing

Burmese Bright

Your love won’t tie

this old guy up;

can’t buy bull shit.

I hate to fly,

that’s no lie, Slick;

it’s my sadness. 

One should not sigh

asking why not

plum pie for lunch.

There is that moon,

just the boon, sir,

raccoons crave most. 

On roads I zoom,

racing doom clouds

past tombs of joy.

Weevils in rye,

wings over skyscapes;

crows vie for power.

Winning is nigh,

so just try now;

leap high for it.

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

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Orpheus Ascending

painting by gregorio lazzarini

Orpheus Ascending

“The secret of reaping the greatest enjoyment

of life is to live dangerously.”--Friedrich Nietzsche

Chewed some mushrooms for my evening meal

before setting out to chronicle the city nocturnal,

both the skyscraper canyons 

and the furtive underbelly, 

where the wet cobblestones

still shone with piss and gin

under the mercury vapor zap,

close to the river and the park

where the orphic musicians, the homeless,

the thugs and bangers and tourists mixed

in the steaming pastiche of Old Town;

stopping briefly to listen to an old man

playing a silver lyre, its sweet & nasty notes

pushing me to my knees while still trying

to cognitively capture fragments of urban

charm within the misty mirrors of my mind;

the old man said his name was Carias,

said he was a Greek, a seer, 

a fugitive from fear, his fingers unafraid

to force the gathering throng into

a twitching sacrificial dance, chanting

and growling, weeping and laughing,

tearing at their attire, freeing

their bare breasts and butts

and archaic principles, lips smeared

with purple honey, frantically flinging

their limber naked limbs seductively

at the somber sparseness

of a starless cosmopolitan sky,

stomping their bare feet with a 

thunderous frenzy, a smitten fury--

I felt chained to the stones beneath me,

could hear them rattling and chiming,

transporting me to Anatolian steepness

with the sticky taste of figs on my tongue

as the primal tension ramped up,

as the sax, harmonica, African drums

and six string guitars began to harmonize

with the lyre, the music reaching out

into the magical night like electric rainbows 

penetrating the bottom of underground caves,

with joy smelling raw and fecund as we heard

the terrible sound of the sirens,

the bellowing of bull horns,

the banging of batons on riot shields:

“Cover up your gorgeous tits, Sister,” I yelled

just as the vengeful newcomers pushed their pilum

into the plexus of the reverie, creating 

unwilling victims within the purview of love,

where the unfettered lust creatures had reigned,

until I had to cover my ears 

as the screaming became unbearable, 

and love children became

the pursued;

and though I first doubted my eyes,

I think I saw that the front line

of the covey of cops were women,

raving Maenads, I tell you, tearing

our co-mingled joy to shreds,

with their hard clubs raining down

onto unprotected pates,

as the sound of that oak shattering bone

and brains haunts my dreams because

I did glance over my shoulder and

Eurydice did vanish for my folly;

mired in my foolishness I had hoped

that the lyre’s magnificent music

would have drown out the song

of the Sirens, and we would all

have escaped the corridors of Hades,

but no, hell no, for Carias was the first to fall,

his music, his poetry, his power

was ground into the pauper’s pavement,

his last words being barely audible:

“in care periculum facere.”

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets

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Bonnie Bowers

image by SueAnn

Bonnie Bowers

Little Bonnie Bowers used to watch

her Daddy fly his biplane out over

their family fields, dusting crops

with a thick greenish-gray mist,

looping, spinning, climbing, diving,

tilting the restrutted wings on the

bright brown Boeing Stearman,

tingling with delight 

when he would glide effortlessly 

to the flat spot behind their hay barn,

knowing it was Saturday, 

her turn to fly too,

standing there tall at ten, 

her white leather aviatrix helmet cap 

buttoned snugly under her dimpled chin, 

her white girlie bomber jacket zipped up, 

her “Bonnie” name tag stitched on 

with pink thread over her excited heart, 

her tomboy head swimming with images

of primitive microrapters flexing their 

greenish-gray flight feathers,

of murderous biplanes forcing Cary Grant

face down in the Dakota mud,

the silliness of Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel

cruising proudly in the skies of Cartoonland,

those wood nymph fairies that fluttered

lovingly around her blond curls within

her daydreams like sentient humming butterflies,

each overlapping madly 

as her father’s wheels left the ground,

the wind pressing against her white goggles,

rising strong above the checkerboard fields,

the windbreak trees rows and rail fences,

the sun-kissed silos, the pinto speckles 

of several dairy herds, rising, lifting,

winging like a pink and white angel

toward cotton candy clouds, and above,

bursting into a blue sky so beautiful

it always made her weep as she searched

the horizon for hawks, eagles, and red barons,

her rainbow-colored knit scarf flapping sweetly,

popping like the folded queen of hearts

in the pink spokes of her front bike tire,

as her father manned the flight stick

and her mother waved from the front porch,

a mere matronly dot below, and her joy

was still swelling, surging, singing,

nearly inexorable.

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets

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Philosopher Kings

image borrowed from bing

Philosopher Kings

“I would like to live as a poor man

with lots of money.”--Pablo Picasso

Woke up weary this morning

with Beat It banging in my head,

nightmarish Halloween images of Michael

moonwalking, crotch-grabbing, his Borselino

pulled low over his mascaraed eyes,

his nose hanging broken to one side, 

a damaged soul genius probable-pedophile

who slept in coffins, kept several llamas

in his living room, whom I think paid someone

to give birth to his prodigy pets, conceived

no doubt with a spangled turkey baster

loaded with his fresh spank-bank spunk,

forever draped in fake military finery, those

red sashes heavy with bogus golden medals,

and those goddamn Ghadaffi epaulettes

beefing up his pale bony shoulders,

sure, sure, just

blame it on his father, old weird Joe,

blame it on the Catholic Church

who still deny the buggerings of the past,

blame it on the rogue Mormons, forcing

sexual advances on their harem of 12 year olds, 

blame it squarely on the snake-like trunks

of the Republicans letting George W. perch

atop his Texas barn like a lunatic weather vane,

taking pot shots at torrents of tourists

who want to see with their own non-digital sight-- 

mechanisms a living example of American Fascism,

some of which want to see Junior twisting black

on a barbeque spit with Greeks and Mexicans

arguing over who gets to eat his evil eyes,

blame it on the bearded zealous followers

of Islam, who have twisted America

into a carnival fear festival, robbing us

of the old joy of flying, of being able to

meet our sweethearts at the gate

with open arms and hearts,

stealing our dignity,

               our shoes,

               our patience,

               our liberty

               our wages,

blame the slimy industrialists, 

sitting like Scrooge McDuck

in their vast mink-lined vaults

counting their callous cash

one thousand dollar bill at a time

with bevies of naked women dancing

seductively while spoon feeding them

Ben & Jerry’s on real silverware,

watching the specter of 5 buck gas,

dash through their stations like insane streakers,

just giving us a sour taste, 

a drive through molestation,

before pushing the costs below 4 bucks, making us

so very grateful, 

so confused,

so exhausted

so disenchanted

that some of us might vote Republican

enabling the mercs of Blackwater

and Haliburton to jack live loads

into their smoking barrels, eager

to plant bloody boots on the ground

somewhere in the Middle East, Latin America,

Mexico, Asia, Africa, the Gulf Coast,

any place where crude oil wells are pumping,

where overloaded tankers run heavy and low

in our turbulent times, 

where off shore oil rigs provide them

with excesses to cache, to hoard,

to trickle out arrogantly complete with

pestering price tags that fluctuate hourly,

blame it on the Corn lobby, on Ethanol 

that pollutes petroleum to the point

where our small engines cannot process it,

giving us the gift of 

corn-sludge in our carburetors, 

blame it on Global Warming,

on that hybrid morphidite bitch

that Nature has become, 

whelping super storms,

mating hurricanes to Nor’easters,

cutting a thousand mile swath of destruction,

flooding, blizzards, high winds and devastation,

blame it on the pithy politicians, venerable dictators,

and Tammany Hall oligarchists who

brazenly manipulate the media, spinning

tragedy into That’s Entertainment, pushing

microphones into the weeping faces

of surviving family members, descending

like larcenous locusts on 

every conflict,

every storm,

every homicide,

or just be straight up, no bullshitting, no spinning,

no truth-bending, no instant replay fact checking,

and blame ourselves for Christ’s sake,

face the painful fact that we will always

reap what we sow. 

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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