Above Teec Nos Pos

image from commons.wikimedia.org

Above Teec Nos Pos

“The farther you go, however, the harder it is

to return.”--Anderson Cooper.

I remember         visiting      the Four Corners Monument,

                   where the edges of         Utah,

                                                               Colorado,

                                                                      Arizona &

                                                                             New Mexico

touch,        where a simple wooden platform

                  was erected over the bronze plaque

                  representing the latitudinal cross hairs

            where the four Southwestern states

        go all back to back & belly to belly.

One could straddle the plaque

        putting your body in all four states

             at the same time, & as your muscles

                     cramped, & you smiled like you had farted
                             in a crowded elevator, your companion

                                   could/would snap a photo for posterity.

                                   There were a dozen ramshackle sheds

                                    in the perimeter where the Navajo, Hopi

                                    Apache vendors could sell their Art and

                                their native jewelry--you know, those

                           fabulous, clunky, magnificent pure silver

                   and turquoise necklaces, bracelets &

           belt buckles; beautiful & heavy & authentic.

Last summer, after more than a decade, I stopped there again. I was

confronted with a paved road, a gate, and a fee to get in; followed by

concrete parking stalls instead of the dusty ruts between arroyos. The

vendor’s sales stalls were all concrete, like thirty of them, encircling the

monument, & it was obvious that some of their jewelry was made in

China. I had to fight back nausea as I looked down on the imported

junk. The bronze plaque is now sunken into the middle of an amphi-

theater. There were fifty people in a line waiting to snap their pictures

with the cross hairs, with two Indian park rangers herding them. 

I’m sure the tribal councils are pleased with the increased revenue

from the new hordes of tourists, but I felt claustrophobic, & in some

inexplicable way--violated--as if a callous slobbering band of bilious

entrepreneurs had smelled profit, & their greed moved them to erect

some faux state park-like Mescalero madness, some crass commercial

carbuncle, destroying & deflowering its former pristine funkiness, 

turning a once comely maiden into a trashy painted-up tart. I knew

that I would never need to stop there again, as I was witness to

the demise of the former placid rough-hewn wholesomeness,

and pure Native American Southwest authenticity; those halcyon

memories have all but vanished.

Progress will roll over

us, regardless of our pleas

to preserve the past.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub "Poetics"

Blackthorne--Review: Part IV

image from my archives.

Blackthorne

Cinemagenics 26-30

Review--Part IV

“Good news, the treatment for my new screenplay, RIDE

VALIANT, is completed, as now I blue-pencil it & type it

up. Meanwhile, we’ll continue with the review of my first

Western, BLACKTHORNE.”--Glenn.

Twenty-Six: Ambuscado--Cheewa growled, & Buck dove out of

the barber chair, while Barnes just stood there, staring sadly.

Horsemen rode by, & there were three shotgun blasts--the front

plate glass window exploded. Buck: Did you get elected? 

Barnes: No, but I got nominated real good. He was gut shot.

Buck rushed outside, Thunderer in one hand, & sawed off shotgun

in the other. The street was empty, but Cheewa noted dust in the

adjacent alley. As Buck checked out the now vacant alley, someone

behind him got the drop on him. It was the town sheriff. Buck is not

pleased being disarmed.

Twenty-Seven: Detainment--The sheriff was Joe Hop, his deputy was

Marcus. Buck, of course, extolls his innocence. Hop checked out the

Colt .41--This weapon has been fired recently. Buck admits to a

“little scuffle” over at the China Doll; Fellow named Ramos gave me

no choice in the matter. There were a dozen witnesses. Hop asked

straight up: Did you shoot our barber? Buck replied: I had no call to

do that. Buck introduces himself, but is still angry & sarcastic. Things

are interrupted by the storekeeper, Henry Wallace: He’s innocent, Joe,

so back off. I wasn’t the only person who saw that bunch gallop by &

blast out Barnes’ window. Hop tries to keep things calm. Wallace

demands to know where Hop was earlier that day when the ruckus

broke out in the China Doll. Irritated, Hop explained that he had been

out of town, journeying to the county seat to see a judge, & had just

returned. Wallace gave his eye witness account. He had been loading

provisions on Buck’s horse when things lit up. He then hears that the

stranger is named Rod Buck.

Twenty-Eight: Release--Wallace asks if the stranger is any relation to

Bill buck--I’m his son. Hop asks who Bill Buck was. Several of the

townspeople gathered around explained, old Bill had been the town

“character”, & that he used to own that sweet ranch up in the foothills

near Bronson’s place. Hop decides to let Buck go for the moment, but

warned him not to leave town. Hop vows to look into the incident in

the saloon as well. Buck: I never go looking for trouble, but it seems

to jump in front of me whenever it pleases. Hop returns Buck’s

weapons, as the stranger & Wallace walk back across the street

over to the General Store.

Twenty-Nine: Aftermath--Buck was charged four dollars for his

groceries. Buck: What’s happened to this town? Wallace: Cash

Bronson. Wallace flashed on the last time he saw Bill Buck. Old

Bill had stood right there in the store, years before. Wallace tried

to get him to eat some breakfast. Bill: Eating is overrated; it gets

in the way of my drinking. Wallace gives him some money, &

instructs him to go to the cafe for a meal. 3 hours later, Wallace

was told that Buck had gotten drunk again, & was on his way

back to the store, when he passed out in the street, right under

the wheels of a moving stagecoach. Wallace then looked at

young Rod Buck, in front of him. He offered Buck a sip of some

“tanglefoot”. They drank together but Wallace’s eye reflected

the old sadness.

Thirty: Whiskey Words--Buck gulped at the home-distilled shine,

& remarked at its mule kick. Buck: Damn your eyes, this juice

could kill ticks. They discussed the shooting at the barber shop.

Wallace figured it was Bronson’s men trying to silence Barnes.

Buck disagreed: Pretty sure they were gunning for me. I had

quite a row with his little brother, Paully, over at the pig wallow.

Wallace considered this, but contended “Shit like that happens

over there way too often. Young man, you’ve only been back in

town for a couple of hours, & already got scorpions in your boots”.

Wallace assumes this all means the stranger will “ride on”. 

Buck assures him: No, I think I’ll be sticking around for a piece.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Fear Eater

image from letstravelradio.com

Fear Eater

“Life gives us experiences, teaches us lessons, gifts us with 

wisdom that is not for us to hoard selfishly. Most people 

accomplish this this through parenting. I have no children, 

so I write.”--My Mystery Poet.

What some of us discover as we age

       and mellow a bit, blunting the rancor we once

                were so willing to share with the world at large,

                        as we find ourselves forming cyber-fellowships

                with other poets, begin reveling in the reality that

        poetic communities are peopled with wonderful

folks whose homes are dotted all over

this planet, & are privileged to share rich

experiences vicariously through them;

        their fabulous words,

        their world views,

        their personal faith,

                               preferences,

                               pets,

                               spouses,

                               neighborhoods, &

                               fantasies.

I do adore so many of my fellow poets,

feeling strongly that we all are extended

family.                         One of the poets          I truly admire

       is a woman with such a zest for life         it permeates

       everything she does, thinks & writes,      but this is not

just a prairie pollyanna--no, her pragmatism is legendary.

                                   She once wrote, 

      There is no joy without the care that comes with pain.

Shakespeare did indeed scribble--

”get thee to a nunnery”--

this is not something just every

young girl would be willing or able

to do,                  but this woman spent 23 years

                           serving her faith

                           and her heart; becoming a nurse

                           within the Order.

                                          Later in her eventful life, she was an 

                        RN, specializing in hospice care, giving comfort

         to the dying, smiling in the face of death, removing its

mask, sharing that beyond pain & fear

death can be a glowing door, as gentle

as taking a loved one’s hand, or a warm

breeze blowing in off the high desert in

July, that death, much maligned, can be

a lovely way station, a focus point for divine

transition.                  Her own mother, now quite frail & mostly

                                  unfocused, has made appearances in

                                  several of her poems:

Yes, Mom, all is well. You can move on when you’re ready.

                                   My own mother-in-law turned 90 last July,

                              and we drove down to Texas to celebrate it

                          with her. Three days after we left, she let go of

                     her pain & slipped away--so this is a scenario that

                 has become all too familiar to many of us. 

This lovely & loving poet faced death herself in 1996, and only

a kidney transplant allowed her to live & write on. I think she has

the creative flare of a Virginia O’Keefe, yet the joyous cowgirl’s

heart of a Dale Evans. May her poetry, short stories & novels

continue, for those of us who celebrate her wondrous words and

her compassionate heart, years & years yet to come.

She has two dogs in

the yard, & once lived in France,

but still wears underpants.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub "Poetics"

Ephemera

image from fubiz.net

Ephemera

“True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of

disjointed memories.”--Florence King.

Traditional

When my life slows down to a snore,

I think about inhaling old paper

and heading out on a caper;

seeking a familiar book store

with two cats and an oaken door;

there are not only tons of books,

for readers, experts, and some cooks,

but also old magazines for

ephemera nuts seeking lore

to share with friends on Facebook.

Unfettered

Scrapbooking is one of my fun 

pursuits, cutting out images from

old magazines; like movie ads,

classic cars, and other forms of sweet

nostalgia, collecting those great

Coca-Cola ads, plethoras

of celebrity endorsements

for cigarettes, booze, and everything

else under the sun. It’s lovely

to look back, remember, then smile.

No one is, though some really feel

isolated, adrift, without any

moorings, disconnected, so very 

alone; but if they allow some

nostalgia to blossom within

the bleakness of their lives, they

will discover that they are, in fact

an integral link in a chain

of human events, art, science

and historical fellowship.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

Blackthorne--Review: Part III

Blackthorne

Cimemagenics 21-25

Review--Part III

“My gratitude swells as I read your positive responses to this

review of all that came before--so it continues. As a sidebar,

I am quite busy writing an actual Western screenplay, requested

by a successful actor friend as a future role for him.”--Glenn

Twenty-One: Warning--Buck returns to Millie’s room upstairs, &

begins to get dressed, asking: Who was that tinhorn? Millie is

silent for a moment, then says: Just ride on, back to nowhere, or

wherever the hell you came from. Buck explains that: This town

is my last stop; life has run out of rails. I’m done with running.”

Millie responds: Then you are probably a dead man; can’t you

hear the guns cocking all over town? That was Cash Bronson’s

little brother that you just tossed out of the window like a sack

of sour goat shit. Buck is told that Bronson is the main king pin,

the hairy bear in that town, & he will retaliate for this insult. Lulu,

the blond prostitute he had cold-cocked was Paully’s “girlfriend”.

Paully mostly stayed at the saloon, pretending to be the manager,

whoring, drinking, & gambling. Cash had a huge ranch, the Triple

B, a few miles out of town. No one stands up to Paully, for fear

of his two brothers. Buck shrugged. She asked: Haven’t you

heard about Thor?

Twenty-Two: Dead Time--Millie warns Buck about Thor Bronson,

the eldest son; slippery fast, & rattlesnake mean: He’s killed over

20 men in gunfights, & he’s never had a scratch on him. Buck

seems unimpressed. As he is leaving, he turns & asks: Sweet

Millie, will you remember me?  “Hell no,” she replied,”I like you,

& you’ll probably be dead inside of a week.” He walks out, leaving

5 silver dollars on the dresser. She watches him from her other

window, standing there naked & weeping. 

Twenty-Three: Errands--Buck stopped at Wallace’s General Store;

they were still busy, so there was no sack of provisions hanging

from his saddle. He could see a barber shop two blocks down. He

notices a lot of crowd buzz at the front of the CHINA DOLL. He slips

his .50 caliber Sharps out of its scabbard, cradles it over on arm &

heads off for a shave & possibly a bath. Most people didn’t really

pay much attention to him; this made him uneasy. At the end of the

first block, in an alley, two Mexican whores had set up shop in front

of a red tent. They waved at him. Buck enters Barnes’ Barber Shop,

& as the barber stood up, he asked: Whooa--what is that lethal

smell? Buck replied: Buffalo blood, beer & pussy. The barber

frowned: Thanks for sharing.

Twenty-Four: Shave & a Haircut--Barnes introduced himself, &

had Buck sit in a swivel chair. He opened his front door a bit,

staring back at the pungent stranger. Cheewa came padding in.

Barnes said, “I don’t hold much with dogs in my shop, but Buck

insisted that his dog stay by his side. Barnes agreed. As he steamed

Buck’s face, & began to clip off the salt & pepper beard, he asked

if Buck knew anything about the gun shots that had happened earlier? 

Buck replied, “ A couple of men got to scuffling over one of the whores”,

in the saloon. Barnes complained that a couple of men a week were

killed or injured in the CHINA DOLL, Buck asked: Does this chicken-

shit town have a sheriff? The barber replied: Yup, his name is  Joe 

Hop, & he’s got a badge & everything; but it seems that he & Bronson

have some kind of arrangement--with the sheriff mostly staying out

of the saloon. “So does Bronson write law & dictate policy?”  Barnes

replied thatIt has nothing to do with laws, & everything to do with

power.  Buck shrugged: What the fuck--there’s a Bronson in every

town.

Twenty-Five: Advice--Buck asks why the town hasn’t just hired some

“regulators” to run Bronson off. It seems Bronson is now too entrenched,

has too much money & land, & a private militia of gunsels to enforce

his will. “Is the sheriff a bought bully for Bronson?” But there is no simple

answer--Hopp is a tough law man; he’s tamed several other towns in the

past. He has been in Blackthorne for about a year. The previous two

sheriffs did not fare well--one was back shot, the other just went fishing

& never came back. Buck inquired about the Bronson brothers. “Why

do you want to know?” Barnes inquired. “I think I just tossed Paully

out of a two-story window, & I’m expecting trouble.” Barnes said:

Be smart, ride on. Buck was silent. Barnes then explained that Bronson

had shown up in town a decade earlier, with a satchel full of cash, &

six men as companions. “My son tells me I talk too much; did Bronson

send you to shut me up? Buck smiled: Well shit-fire, it will be a hot old

time in the town when this wicked-ass Jefe & I finally meet. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Romp Phantasmagoric

image from fineartamerica.com

Romp Phantasmagoric

“The crowd is the veil through which the unfamiliar city beckons

to the flaneur as phantasmagoria--now a landscape, now a room.”

--Walter Benjamin.

Our newest toilet

is a Toto,                    but hey,

                 I’m not so disenchanted       with Kansas

                 that I might flush myself       down it

to finally find

the red poppy fields,

the coven of white witches,

the sinister flying monkeys,

or singing lollipop dwarfs.

One of my closets is indeed a wardrobe,

        because the builder did not fully appreciate

              or comprehend sartorial decorum, just an oaken

                      stand alone with carved wooden doors, but I swear

               on one fevered night the Indian did step out of it,

         with a lion on a red leash, & two eagle feathers

in his teeth. I couldn’t exactly tell what tribe

he was from because the moonlight was

shadowed in dim gauze. 

There are actual islands in the stream

of Puget Sound, & when but a callow

youth I would sit on shore & stare at them,

finally selecting the smallest one for myself,

that I would purchase after becoming a famous

actor & writer. I planned to live on it full time,

in sight of the city, but snug in my own fiefdom.

I would erect a twenty-story tower above the

mansion to use as my writer’s nest--with a

360 degree view & stone parapets. But alas

today it is used by Native Americans for a

tourist salmon-bake stop. 

                                                      I live in a miraculous house in a quiet

                                     suburb that is supercharged with psychic energy,

                              riddled with sweet dimensional portals, complete with

                        ghostly interlopers & walk-throughs, convenient access to

                 amorous kundalini dragons, vast medieval landscapes covered

         with orange castles flying yellow & golden banners, with more than

enough space to accommodate my collection of 30,000 movies, a boundless

imagination, daring dreams,

several computers, three wide-

screen televisions & seven

rambunctious grandchildren.

I have never actually climbed Mt. Rainier, but I have spend a decade

circumnavigating it, photographing it, & worshipping its majesty. In my

zoom lens, several times, I have detected fuzzy flocks of huge white

wings--snowbird angels that frolic over the glaciers perhaps? They must

be quite the sight to behold close-up. There are local mountaineer legends

about bizarre encounters with such creatures, who like Sasquatch, have

a dark side as well.

Imagination

transports us beyond what is 

real--to fantasy.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets "Poetics"

Sevenling ( I Painted )

image by glenn buttkus

Sevenling ( I Painted )

I painted my ’08 Gran Vitara nine months ago,

& I gave it its first official wash

three days ago.

We drove to the ocean this week;

it beamed fire engine red on the beach

as I snapped three photos of it,

before noticing the newly peeled paint above the windshield.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub MTB