Bluebird

artwork by sunita khedekar

Bluebird

Bluebird said to me, “get up,

my grandchild, it is dawn”.

--Navajo song.

Bluebird was the town,
not found on any map.

“Happiness found here.”

read the sign along the country lane

where one entered, and

“May happiness accompany you

upon leaving; thanks for sharing--

come again.”  read the hand-painted

sign as one exited. 

“What a presumptuous place I thought,”

Why had the blue bird captured the laurel

of happiness, from the Tang Dynasty to

Dorothy warbling about rainbow riding;

why not a red bird, a yellow bird?

B.B. King doesn’t sing about happiness

when he sings the blues.

On the day I visited, there had been

a vicious thunderstorm dogging me

for hours, & yet within the township,

there was only sunshine, warmth,

fellowship, a song on every lip;

Every house & building was painted

in bright cheerful colors, rainbow-drenched,

electric, shimmering, crushing cynicism,

dodging depression; it was like strolling

the streets of Brigadoon.

In a cove, somewhere on a seashore,

built on the banks of a beautiful blue lagoon,

with seafood restaurants, fish shops,

and sailor lore everywhere along the west side,

dozens of fishermen’s dories stacked

in the white sand, yellow-blue fishing nets

drying over racks in the steaming sun--

and everywhere

               there were wonderful

                                blue kites of all sizes, 

all of them winged,

                               like azure eagles, 

                           cobalt hawks, 

                indigo owls, 

drifting in the warm thermals, 

shaking 

their silken blue tails 

vigorously.

There were three strange blue birds

wandering about town, tame as chickens,

proud as peacocks, part parrot, part jay,

fanning their aquamarine tail feathers 

joyfully--

their voices seductive, 

their songs siren-like; 

rich, syrupy 

& eerie.

After a few stolen hours

I could not bear another moment

of beauteous blue-bliss--

God, I actually missed

my natural negativity,

my sinful sarcasm, so

I zipped up my black slicker

& thrust myself headlong

back into the storm,

back into

the real world,

& oddly as I sped out of Bluebird,

gleefully greeting the grayness,

I felt genuine relief, not remorse;

for one needs the darker shades too

it seems, as day must have night,

in order to be 

whole, 

complex,

complete,

human. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Otto Wolfgang Maximus

image borrowed from bing

Otto Wolfgang Maximus

“Man is a dog’s idea of what God

should be.”--Holbrook Jackson.

A couple

in California

left

their 13 year old

dachshund

tied to a post

outside

a pet shelter.

“He needs care.

We are seniors,

sick & broke;

have no choice--

please put him

to sleep.”

Leave No Paws Behind

stepped in,

provided Vet-aid,

then re-united

Otto

with his

owners--

a happy ending,

for once. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on G-Man's Friday Flash 55

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Monday, Monday

image borrowed from bing

Monday, Monday

“My smile on Mondays is as insincere as

a Rush Limbaugh apology.”--Anonymous.

Awakened loudly by Z.Z. Top,

prompting me to be a sharp dressed man;

reaching wrong twice before the damn singing

from the clock-radio was silenced.

The room felt cold, so regret put its fist

into the small of my back regarding

the partially-open bedroom window--

the traffic noise from the street

was already heavily & loudly

in motion;

         car horns,

                   engines revving,

                                  brakes squawking, 

                                              trains clanking & blasting        

                                                                 shrilly, all playing their

early morning urban symphony.

The bulky quilt my mother had made

was pulled up to my chin;

it whiffed of cat & night sweat;

the insane warmth from my curled-up body

encased me in inertia, made me

re-imagine the Monday dream scenario--

you know the one where I call in sick,

slip back to sleep until 10 a.m.

then spend the whole day

sitting around in my gym duds

& dirty underwear listening to jazz & blues,

& perhaps composing some of my own

on the piano.

I opened my eyes, embracing mostly darkness

as the morning’s brightness stirred up thirty

kinds of shadows dancing around the room;

there was no object perception, hadn’t been any

since I was four years old. 

I tripped on one of my dress shoes

moving sleepily from the bed

to the bathroom. Living alone,

I felt free to yelp & shout shit

without recrimination.

The hot shower pounded my scalp,

kick-started my heart,

cleared my head; still loving

the lemon herbal scent

of my shampoo, & the clean floral

smell of my thick fuzzy towel

on my unshaven face. 

Coltrane serenaded me 

throughout my bathroom habituals;

the English Leather splashed on

after playing kissey-face with my Norelco

was extra spicy. 

Picking out my clothes was easy;

the braille tags were still extant

& my sainted mother had arranged

everything according to my wishes.

I always enjoy the feel of my silk ties, 

picking the red dragon one

I was pretty sure, wrapping it tightly

over the left & right sides, making

a wide knot, & checking the length

until it just touched my belt buckle,

then tossing it cavalierly over my shoulder,

keeping it out of the instant cinamon/apple

oatmeal & soy milk, accompanied

by two pieces of Texas toast

slathered in real butter

and a large cup of black coffee.

Soon I had given Butch some good-day

strokes after checking his crunchers

& water bowl, slipped into my Bogart

trench coat, picked up my leather briefcase,

my red & white folding cane,

& was double-locking my apartment door

when my cell phone rang, or more accurately

Michael Jackson sang Beat It.

It was Jimmy, he was already here,

double-parked outside, telling me

that I needed to haul butt.

“Be right there, asshole--tell me

if my socks don’t match this time. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Under The Macroscope

image by buttkus

Under The Macroscope

“As of now, string theorists have no explanation of why there are three

large dimensions as well as time, & the other dimensions are microscopic.”

--Edward Witton.

Michelle

tells kids

to play harder,

but midday

in city parks,

the monkey rings

hang empty,

the slides are barren,

& the swings

are idle.

**************************************

image by buttkus

In Winter

when rust barnacles

cling to

its ribs,

& fir needles

decorate

its grooves,

a park barbecue

can recall

the pungent

meat odors

of Fall.

******************************************

image by buttkus

The lovely

deep red hues

of my wife’s

favorite watering can

still shines

strongly

while a dusting

of snow

tickles

its flowered

metal base.

*******************************************

image by buttkus

I can remember

a time

when all cars

had hood ornament

art on them;

chromed rockets,

fair maidens,

mermaids,

rams

& archers. 

*************************************************

image by buttkus

Even 

a stately

evergreen,

        still dripping

        with sap,

                  can succumb

                  to the overtures

of death,

                  needles turning

sickly brown

                  when holidays

are over. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Rocket Cats

image borrowed from goggle

Rocket Cats

“Draft beer, not animals.”--Bob Dylan.

Recently,

post-digitalization,

a 16th century

military manual

was unearthed

that contained

illustrations of

weaponized cats

& birds, wearing

strapped-on

jet-packs. 

No, not another

De Vinci demon,

just a proposal

to strap on

explosive satchels,

light the fuses

and send the 

animals toward

besieged castles.

Last century

we used dolphins

for this duty. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on G-Man's Flash 55 Friday

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Mia Manifestum

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Mia Manifestum

“A painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians

& poets paint their pictures on silence.”

--Leopold Stokowski.

IMPETUS

It just seems that I have always had a need to comment

on the actions that unfolded about me--a mouthy kid,

a bright student who first encountered the word,

the concept of Manifesto with the term Communist

attached to the front of it, and

even as a youngster, struggling to understand Marx’s

philosophy, lying naked on the page, void of spin, 

that spoke

of a brotherhood of man,

I found myself inspired, propelled into a mindset

of liberalism that would too often place me at 

loggerheads with those in control;

the cruel constabulary,

the bastardo--bureaucrats, 

the corporate stooges,

the inept educators,

the lascivious lobbyists, 

& hordes of hypocritical

posses of Pharisees, priests, & popes.

Reading Jack London with a flashlight under

my covers at ten, I loved the Klondike adventures

but what really caught my eye was the lesser

known dystopian & progressive views in

The Iron Heel. 

Reading Steinbeck at twelve I was influenced,

nearly overwhelmed by Tom Joad’s last dialogue

with his Ma, “I’ll be everywhere--around in the dark

wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat,

or a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there--or in the way

guys yell when they’re mad, or when decent people

are eatin’ the stuff they raised, living in the house

they built--I’ll be there.”

So before puberty, before further education

or forays into introspection & enlightenment,

I vowed to myself to be there, in all those dark

Steinbeckian places, to be a pair of fists, or

bleeding lips, or a loose tongue, to be a

reporter,

gad fly,

chronicle-maker,

pariah,

loose cannon,

muckraker--

I just needed to find a way, a medium, a voice;

After reading Chekov’s The Sea Gull, I could not forget

the statements made by Trigorin, the writer,

both blessed & cursed by his incessant need

to catalog every conversation, observance,

“clouds shaped like a grand piano,”

& encounters that he experienced before stating,

“Then I hear my desk calling, and have to go back to it,

and begin to write, write, write once more.”

Then came the thundering of the

deus ex machina, 

the burst of golden light,

after I was introduced to the free verse

of Walt Whitman--suddenly I felt

engorged, entitled, privileged 

to thrust my angst, my shreds of wisdom,

philosophy, & righteous emotion,

like biblical loaves & fishes

out amongst the throngs, the swarm--

& I adopted Whitman’s statement,

“Re-examine all that you’ve been told--

dismiss that which insults your soul.”

Manifest Fatum

So yes, I said yes,

a hundred thousand times yes,

yes to clarity,

yes to a path,

yes to a voice,

yes to becoming a Writer, 

and to write about everything,

to use every form,

technical/vocational writing,

novellas, short stories, novels, political speeches,

resumes, recipes, directions, & advice,

& at the top of the needy list was Poetry,

because I understood that a poet

could be prince or jester, sage or trickster,

ever the standard bearer, the baton twirler,

the soldier on point, the soloist, the alpha creature, the lead dog--

not because I was decreed, sanctified, or directed

by others, but more because something had risen up

within me, within some cosmic quantum arachnid’s webbing,

even deeper within some inexorable helixical truth,

and I find myself forever bound to & blessed with

a demon’s silver tongue,

a clown’s demeanor,

a philosopher’s barbed thoughts,

a warrior’s temperament,

a lover’s touch, attached to

a dove’s divine drive to perpetuate peace, coupled to

a rugby player’s need not to be taken to ground;

As every inhalation of breath 

refreshes my poetic sinews,

strengthens my use of language,

gathering more power in order to pump

out my messages from the heart,

to salve my restless spirit,

& to spread my words

like a sweet bountiful virus

beyond the firewalls of resistance,

like cherry blossoms flung about by a Spring breeze,

& even though most will not know me personally,

will not remember my mere name, maybe,

perhaps some of my poetic viscus will cling

to their hungry lobes & chambers, & might actually

become the fuel, the sustenance they need

to journey on into tomorrow. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Evolution Is Never Linear

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Evolution Is Never Linear

“The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not

live for itself--it gives life to others as it transforms.”

--Lao Tzu.

My first adolescent fumbling with poetry,

mostly long & rambling purple prose,

more masturbatory than masterful,

was to woo a girl in high school;

which was silly in retrospect,

for she was unattainable, blond,

a cheerleader, going steady with a jock,

pregnant before graduation.

There was this tall effeminate 

Language Arts teacher that taught poetry,

where I got my first glimpse of Whitman,

guiding me to see the marvelous poetic

touches within the prose of Howard Fast,

Steinbeck, & Faulkner. 

Incredibly, 

half a century has played out,

& my poetry has been my shadow companion

from

    my time

          in the Navy

                    during Viet Nam,

& throughout my second & third returns to college

during those

           thrilling, turbulent

                         Beatles-soaked,

                                       bra-less hippy-dippy

                                                long hair, leather fringed,

I’m a Gemini--let’s fuck

days;

and the poems were very political, personal, 

influenced by wondrous dips into the far-out realms

of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Kesy, Burroughs & Bukowski--

muscular poetics

with both romantic & metaphysical

shadings.

Mid-life my pantheist bent mixed liberally 

with my inner spiritual journeys--catapulted

into a frenzied hyper-drive at 3 a.m.

one morning on the high desert

near Red Mountain, CA,

as a UFO encounter helped my poetry

take on a deeper aesthetic--

just before technology transported me

beyond my immediate sphere,

my private patch of the planet,

spreading my atoms, my mind,

my words to every conceivable corner

of the earth, introducing myself

to others through my poetry,

fueling the creative flames,

providing the updraft

that would keep me aloft.

Besides the obvious expansion

of my horizons, I experienced revelations

& epiphanies as shared knowledge

enriched my writing skills exponentially,

& strengthened my courage as the

passionate pack of poets perpetuated

my realization that poetry, like music,

is universal, cosmic, & essential--

and that all dialects, points of view,

forms & messages should be

regarded as valid. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics  

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