Danger: Diatribe

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Danger: Diatribe

“Most sermons sound to me like commercials--

but I can’t make out whether God is the Sponsor

or the Product.”---Mignon McLaughlin.

The Super Bowl is soon upon us;

the entire planet awaits not only the event,

but more specifically, the commercials.

Sponsors spent millions per second,

work for months on the planning

of their minute masterpieces,

line up spokes-singers like

Stevie Wonder, Adele, 

Lady Gaga, or Taylor Swift

to sell soft drinks, beer, cars, & insurance,

vie for profits, accolades, awards,

and controversy.

We can barely wait to witness

how many layers of lipstick Flo is wearing,

the absurd CGI adventures of a gecko,

witches in a broom factory,

and a sexy red Cadillac racing

through the streets of Monaco

or the mountain roads of Tibet,

as Madison Avenue prepares to instruct us

on fashion, morals, underwear, politics,

beverages, transportation, reverse mortgages,

ecology, fossil fuels, fast foods, erectile dysfunction,

diarrhea, and adult diapers.

We would like to believe that we

are not other-directed, that we

have a semblance of sales resistance,

but now that TV commercials

are shoved down our minds

in movie theaters, our prodigy

are paralyzed with name-brand quests,

and technology has successfully invaded

every niche, damp place, and wrinkle

of our lives, goddamn it, every day

we begin to look more like lemming

standing in mile-long lines

for the next available techno-cliff.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets-Poetics

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Avias Sward

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Avias Sward

“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men

is primarily based on mutual trust.”

--Albert Einstein

It is early morning,

and a light fog lies

like a holy shawl over 

San Francisco bay.

The sun peeks its fiery brow

up over the jagged lip

of the Sierra Nevada to the east;

most of the skyscrapers downtown

find some of their glass catching

searing rays of fire--

orange, yellow, & violet.

Flashes of tiny green wing their way

from the dozens of parks

and secret nesting places

all over that part of the city.

Larger than sparrows,

but smaller than pigeons,

these strong green-tinted fliers

darting in and out of the palm fronds

and thick grey-green deciduous leaves

are red-crowned Conures--

small but mighty wild parrots.

The reddish feathers on their heads,

and the red slash around their feral eyes

seems to deepen in color

as the sun’s early shards

catch them flying eastward.

Alcatraz winks white across

the narrow waist of the bay,

as the sea breeze picks up--

creating white caps

and swirling wind snakes across

the disturbed surface of the water.

In the near distance,

the Golden Gate bridge

is clearing itself of low clouds

as stiff winds blow the morning mists

off its red steel superstructure & cables.

Riding the thermals & twisting

through the breakfast breezes,

three lone Conures become seven,

then twelve, then fifty--some

invisible instinct guiding them,

letting them congregate into

a noisy squawking flock--

like some living feathered sky design,

one arial beast with many hearts,

soaring, beating their blurred wings;

moving as one mass, yet barely

held together with its configuration

shifting, while maintaining itself

as one avian articulated body

bending gracefully

and thrusting itself through the air--

its leaders making sudden

sharply banked turns, where

the out flyers had to swing wide

and strain to keep up,

just before the formation tightened, flying

as one tremendous throb of viridescence

past the Cafe Trieste, whizzing past

the stark white obelisk of the Coit Tower;

nearly a perfect lesson for

the struggling partisan throngs below. 

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Blackhawk Found

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Blackhawk Found

“I object to violence because when it attempts to do good,

the good is only temporary--but the evil it does is permanent.”

--Mahatma Gandhi.

I loved reading combat comics when I was eight;

smelling new, unfolded, right off the rack.

SGT. ROCK spewed plenty of hot lead,

heroism always the primary key,

oblivion always the enemy’s fate.

I think my favorite comic was BLACKHAWK,

a 1941 pilot-hero living without dread.

The diversity of his squadron pleased me,

with several nationalities in the pack,

their aerial expertise trumped tough-talk.

Fascination to violence led straight to science fiction.

War in outer space & history seemed to be

a perfect compliment, feeding the lack

of actual thrills within the unsaid,

unseen, inexperienced, non-fiction,

mundane, boring aspects of my life;

all prior to video games, CGI, multi-track

techno-wizardry piling up the dead;

exacerbating violence for kids to see,

and perhaps compounding real madness & strife.

“People sleep peacefully in their beds only because

rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

--George Orwell.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

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How Long?

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How Long?

“How long will prejudice blind the visions of men?

Not long--no lie can live forever.”--Martin Luther King

My neighbor’s canine howling at sirens

reminded me of dogs as daemon,

companions and heralds for Hecate.

I have a memory of a tall tombstone

in an ancient cemetery, sculpted

with Hecate’s form in tripartile,

three separate, yet conflated, figures--

two with torches, 

one with a great key,

chthonic triplets lighting the way

to the underworld;

godmother,

earth mother,

companion spouse;

the sweetest of spiritual nannies 

dispatched for gentle transitions,

fully restoring the matriarchal magic

to cushion the various dances of death;

benevolent guardians who easily

eradicate the malignant memory

of MacBeth’s wicked Crone,

who tempted him into madness,

Hecate’s influences are felt across the labyrinth 

of history, her image found on thousands

of terra-cotta vases and statuettes,

and residing in old prints illustrating

her nubile followers devouring dogs

fresh from flaming bothros.

Only brightly-coiffed tender-hearted Hecate,

the single daughter of Persaeus, heard

the girl from her cave.--Hesiod.

Like the lonely sailor with Mother tattooed

garishly on his forearm,

like the sad soldier mired 

in the machinations

of Boot Camp, waiting 

for a letter from home,

in lieu of accepting 

all those simplistic sentimental remarks

in literature and greeting cards, I

have always felt totally absorbed by

my unabashed adoration of women;

too often becoming moody & surly while

still waiting for the eventual total equality

of the sexes, in all their various guises,

wondering how many of my past lives

were spent as a woman, or has it

always been just my re-colored pragmatic

emotional adjustment to losing

my own mother at a young age?

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

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Super Star

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Super Star

“An Actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must

be willing to accept all the experience life has to offer.

In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at

his feet.”--James Dean

We went to the movies a lot,

didn’t get a TV until 1953,

the size of a dishwasher

with a 12” round screen,

watching the world in B&W.

From day one, we three kids

were trooped off by our young parents

to the movies, lots of Saturday matinees--

double bills, plus cartoons and newsreels;

or the three of us in pajamas

in the back of a station wagon

at the Drive-Ins, watching

Westerns, Musicals, & Comedies

between the bobbing heads of Mom & Dad,

eating food my mother had cooked at home,

having a “movie picnic”,

chicken, spaghetti, & pot roast on paper plates,

followed by stale chips & homemade cookies--

no trips for us to the expensive snack bar.

At 12, I was riding a city bus downtown by myself,

and for fifty cents going to the Embassy Theater,

on Third Avenue, 3 movies plus trailers & cartoons.

One memorable Saturday I watched

Clark Gable in BOOM TOWN,

Rudolph Valentino in SON OF THE SHIEK,

& Audie Murphy in THE KID FROM TEXAS--

rapidly developing into a dyed-in-celluloid

movie buff prior to puberty.

No wonder I took Drama classes

in High School, and won “Best Actor” awards;

moving next into Community Theater

working with middle-aged adults who

still felt the call to perform, still had unfulfilled

dreams of careers never pursued,

before I became a college All Star,

jumping into Brecht & Shakespeare

with maximum verve, naivete, & swagger,

leading to hard core Acting training

that became a truncated professional career,

seeming to be always moving forward;

transplanted to Los Angeles,

heart ablaze with expected successes

that a decade later still eluded me. 

But life’s many thoroughfares have several

confusing clover leafs & five-way intersections--

one day in May I took an appealing off-ramp,

traveling toward Education, working with the blind,

and before I realized it, I had set my former

egocentric childish pursuits aside,

as I discovered the genuine adult joy

of helping others, of having legitimate impact

in their lives, of making a difference.

I only rarely look back.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2012

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Alabaster Anthem

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Alabaster Anthem

“A photograph is always invisible, it is not

it that we see.”--Roland Barnes

The tall white stallion stood silver,

quivering with marbled milky muscle,

sporting an edelweiss blaze,

not completely white, but nearly,

more off-white, streaked gently

with pearl-brown trails,

standing proudly, regally, midst

a crisp white-day moment, milky fetlocks

shaggy-deep in blanco fluff,

whitish on white, the curly hair

of its long mane flecked with snowflakes,

shimmering like chrome sequins, 

its magnificent tail swishing

in the icy brightness,

neighing softly,

its hot breath puffing ivory steam clouds,

its right leg pawing at the snow

revealing a swath of golden hay beneath--

tail flicking, voice nickering, hoof crunching,

creating an equus concerto, barely

acknowledging the other;

a woman in a tight ermine snow suit,

neck wrapped thrice in a green & white scarf,

hood, blanched by white fur, up over

her festive knitted red & white woolen hat,

wearing stylish amber-tinted sunglasses,

holding a camera out from her lovely face,

clicking & clicking & clicking,

shooting fifty times,

the shutter clacking like a jazz drummer,

laying out a bitchin’ beat,

capturing barrel chest,

handsome head held high,

blue-pink eyes,

powerful thighs,

overlapping graceful lines;

there together,

he & her united

by art, poetry, imagery, creativity;

a tiny significant love-making

heating up an indifferent snowbank,

sultry stick figures in a frozen landscape,

perhaps

a magazine cover 

or highway billboard

in the making, sustenance

for her amusement & Muse,

a very social intercourse

in a barnyard,

without words

in that place

and in the twilight zone.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

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Psychonaut

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Psychonaut

“We are born, live, and die alone. Only through our love

and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment 

that we are not alone.”--Orson Welles

Forever I have felt as if I were suffocating,

that when surrounded by any gang

I became short-of-breath, light-headed,

livid with undiagnosed mundane retro-stresses

that like hungry lizards would chew at my innards.

My sad soul was just a prisoner

of both my bastard body

and my unyielding circumstances.

My psychic scars were unseen,

but sometimes in the moonlight

during those frequent sleepless nights

I could visualize in the mirror

angry patches of discolored cracked skin

that criss-crossed the ever pale contours

of my bareness.

A psychiatrist told me that clearly

since my sainted mother had perished

at my birth, I was struggling with survivor’s guilt,

that my misguided demonic conscience refused

to allow me to experience joy, homeostasis, or love;

the complete absence of love became

a sucking heart wound, 

that I did not believe

I could give it, or deserve it.

My unbalanced self image was a tar baby,

and any semblance of positive vibes

just melted away when in direct contact

with that corrosive black stickiness.

One day while thumbing through

some medical journal in another doctor’s 

waiting room, I came upon an article

on sensory deprivation tank therapy--

psuedo-science at best my right brain monkey

chattered, but I dialed that clinic’s phone number

regardless, and then dragged my resistance

through the sun-drenched doors of perception,

embarked on a passionate project worthy

of my complete attention, eager to close

the gap between angst and function.

They lowered me naked

several times into a blue pool

of warm salt water, letting me lie

weightless on my back, floating

gloriously with no tendency to

have to adjust my posture,

suspended wonderfully in the absolute center,

hardly aware of the gentle slow circulating

current that kept me there, preventing

me from experiencing the trauma

of bumping into, or even touching

walls.

At my insistence, on my third session,

they closed the lid, and as I heard

the clamps click, floating there

in my lightless soundproof pod,

I revisited the womb, reconnected

with the old voyager that had been

chained below decks for so long,

rediscovered the maternal love

that had been the vehicle for

my present incarnation, and finally

embraced the karmic sacrifice

my gracious mother had exercised

in order to launch me into lesson,

so that each time I emerge now

I do so with a full heart,

for I am grateful for the discovery

of my true loving self

that had waited patiently 

in the liquid.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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