Blackthorne--Episode 104

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 104

Triage

“My life is triage.”--Andrew Vachss.

1(sound cue) violin and branch flute.

2(tight two-shot) Buck: I have never seen

such courage, old one; touching the Indian’s

shoulder lightly.  

      Johnny looked up, moving his head

slowly, painfully. You are wounded...don’t

worry about me. Muerto waits.

Buck: It is nothing, a flesh wound...but they

have shot you to pieces.

3(sound cue) seed rattle & cello.

Johnny: I see it again.

Buck: See what again? as he gently wrapped his

arms around the Eagle’s quivering shoulders .

4(close-up) Johnny: El Blanco.

5(voice over) Buck: Where?

6(sound cue) coronet over buffalo hooves.

7(cut to a wide shot) the great albino bull bison,

alone on a bluff. As the men speak in voice over,

the camera dollys quickly toward the animal,

halting with a close up of its eyes.

Johnny: When I close my eyes, there he is,

my totem. The biggest buffalo I have ever seen.

He stands on a knoll and watches me.

Buck: And he is all white ?

Johnny: As white as a bank of dirty snow, with

small pink eyes and black horns. I think, I fear,

he waits for me.

8(close up) Buck: He waits for us all, my

brother. Rest now...we will get a doctor for your

many wounds.

9(three shot) I’ll go, Salina said, suddenly standing

beside him. Buck rose, wiped the blood from his

eyes, put his hands on his guns, watching the

ranch house crash in on itself, his mother’s room

and his mother, gone forever. He pulled his

hunting knife from its sheath, and handed it to

Salina, handle first.

Buck: Cut your palomino loose, girl. There isn’t

any other available horseflesh.

Salina: These bastards, her small right

hand waving over the many bodies, must

have rode up here on something!

Buck: Their broncs will be picketed and

hidden. I’ll find them later.

10(medium wide shot) Salina cut her palomino

gelding loose. She grabbed a handful of thick

mane, and swung up on its back. Buck squatted

down next to Johnny.

Buck: Hurry.

11(sound cue) French horn, guitar and castanets

12(overhead traveling drone shot) Salina jerked

the horse North toward town, kicking its golden

flanks all the way past the great gray boulder,

her skirt and hair, and the horses tail flying in

the wake of the hard gallop.

13(cut back to two-shot) Johnny stared glassy-

eyed at the inferno in front of him. The grand

rancho tumbling into embers and ash--and he

looked beyond, to the evening sky, also on fire

as the sun of blood smeared across the prairie’s

rim behind the house, fleeing west from the

fists of darkness pressing against it. A blood

moon made its entrance.

14(sound cue) piano & violins.

Johnny, with his cheeks wet with tears: My Buck.

Buck: Yes.

Johnny: It hurts.

Buck: I know, compardre, I know.

Johnny: Not my wounds, no, they are numb. The

pain is in my heart as I watch all your dreams and

hard work go up in owlhoot smoke. 

Buck, one tear rolling down his blood-stained cheek:

They are loco if they think this defeats us. Hell, no.

Together, we will dream new dreams, better dreams.

Johnny: Uh-huh, together, new dreams.

Buck held him in his arms in silence.

But for now, let me treat some of these holes in

your tough hide.

Johnny: Yes, go. I will be right here when you 

return.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Death Song

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Death Song

“I don’t know why Batty saved my life. Maybe in 

those last moments he loved life more than he

ever had before. Not just his life--anybody’s life;

my life. All he wanted was the same that all of

us want. Where did I come from? Where am I

going? How long do I have? All I could do was

sit there and watch him die.”--Rick Deckard,

BLADE RUNNER.

I once faced death

without warning,

and experienced an

out-of-body scenario.

I recognized

My Higher Self

as a translucent entity,

standing in front of me

as I held it by the wrists.

Somehow I sensed

it was on the brink of departure.

It seemed to be struggling

with a decision; should it

return to my meat shroud

or abandon me, leaving

a soulless empty vessel.

As a reflex, I clung to

homeostasis, and pulled back

on the spiritual figure,

jerked it back to within me,

or it rejoined of its own accord

and the cosmic euphoria

of that significant re-morphing

convinced me that I actually

had something to do with it. 

In that metaphysical nanosecond

I understood another jagged piece

of my existence puzzle.

As Batty sat on that roof

in the rain, reciting his death song,

after a small pause, he said,

Time to die. 

This is a moment

we all shall share,

human and android alike,

the gateway, the veil,

the crossroads,

the shining time of transition.

Whatever we shall discover

on that journey, can not be

shared with those we left behind,

or those who shall come after us;

more’s the pity.

Remember what Tyrell said to Batty:

The light that burns twice as bright,

burns only half as long.

Will we ever really know if

androids dream of electric sheep?

When we get around to creating replicants,

and they become sentient, 

will they develop a digital soul,

some holographic spark of divinity?

When we play God,

what will it cost us?

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Harvest Elegy

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Harvest Elegy

“What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall

reap i\n the harvest of action.”

--Meister Eckhart.

Growing up near farms,

I learned that Fall 

is the major harvest period.

The apple and pear orchards

burst with fruit.

The mustard fields

smother the hillocks

in school bus yellow foliage,

pungent from an acre away.

Fall wheat and rye sway

in rhythm with national pride.

Several kinds of corn and maize 

grow taller than sunflowers.

Potatoes, cabbage and lettuce

mantle their fields

in verdant fat wide leaves.

Of course, nature can be

a harsh bedfellow, when

insect infestation, drought or flood

interrupt Harvest’s bounty.

Corn fields, after the crop

has been picked, make me sad.

The broken and trampled stalks

remind me of dead soldiers

on a battlefield.

Even though I realize that

this is the barrenness of harvest

or pestilence, before the left overs

are plowed under, the spirits

of the dead cry out to me.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Houston, We have a Problem

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Houston, We have a Problem

“I prefer peace, but if trouble must come, let it

come in my time, so that my children can live

in peace.”--Thomas Paine.

Considering the state of the Union,

how can we ever be united again?

We know that Divided we Fall,

though we are complicit in that division.

Yes, Democracy dies in darkness,

but this time it’s not the Democrats

who’ve spawned the autocratic shadow.

Thank our Founding Fathers

that some of us are not cowering in the shade.

Conflict can crop up between

Dads and their prodigy, and politics

can be fodder for the conflicting views.

It’s not the age old battle between

morality and capitalism that’s to blame;

rather it’s the immoral, greedy, ruthless,

spewing of raw sewage that spurts

out of the White House, the rancid circle

of collusion, spinning shiny deflections,

with the Republicans circling the wagons

that leads us to snarls, clenched teeth,

vendettas, investigations, and litigations.

We hope, we pray to be led out

of this quagmire, 

    this steaming stinking swamp,
    this chaotic cacophony,

    this fucking nightmare.   

  

Glenn Buttkus

Polyptoton

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Inquiring Minds

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Inquiring Minds

“I will wait for you like a lonely house till you see

me and live in me again. Until then my windows

will ache.”--Pablo Neruda.

When will all the glaciers return?

When will the endless wars

in the Middle East

turn into peace?

Where will you find a bell

that will ring

in your dreams?

Where is any

pragmatic plan

for dumping Trump?

Where do all

the extinct species

go to hide?

Isn’t being

in Trump’s cabinet

like following an elephant

with a shovel?

Is Jesus actually willing

to stop the next

Great Flood, or will he

just become

the King of Waterworld?

When the New Civil War

is full upon us, and

thousands are dying,

who will step in

for Lincoln?

Do cockroaches care

that young black men

are murdered 

on their way home

from the store?

When RBG dies,

will the Supreme Court

become ludicrous? 

Why not build a base on the Moon,

before trying for Mars?

Isn’t driving while intexticated like

playing hopscotch on the freeway?

Why does the rise of technology create

clueless, detached, selfish young people?

Will the angels rebel against all those

Evangelicals for  Trump?

With only a skeleton crew still aboard 

the Trump Train, what keeps it on the tracks?

There is a lot of heavy lifting to be done

in all sectors, should we call in the poets?

 Glenn Buttkus

Posted over atdVerse Poets Pub

All We Need

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All We Need

“Love looks not with the eyes, and therefore

winged Cupid is painted blind.”

--William Shakespeare.

Cupids missiles

are carried

in the cutest 

quiver, they’re

covered in 

red fox fur.

The love darts

are very sharp.

and are dipped

in cherry treacle.

Some arrows create

a quiver of lust;

others create

a perpetual love quiver.

Then we are all in.

Glenn Buttkus

Quadrille

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Blackthorne Episode 103

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 103

Bulletspeak

“Thoughts are the gun, words are the bullets,

the bullseye is heaven.”--Douglas Horton.

1(sound cue) French horn and kettle drum.

2(tight one-shot) Buck fired both pistols at once.

3(cut to overhead wide drone shot) and both

brigands went down like twin tin ducks.

4(two shot) one was dead, shot through the

temple, the other was wounded just above

the kidneys. He rolled over and fired back at

Buck.

5(sound cue) two loud simultaneous shots.

6(tight one shot) Before Buck saw the gunman’s

smoke, the Thunderer had thrown a bullet at him.

7(close-up) a sledge hammer hit Buck on the 

side of his head.

8(sound cue) Coronet, one loud long note.

9( cut to overhead crane shot) both men 

lurched forward, thudding to the dirt.

10(medium one-shot) When Johnny saw Buck fall,

he raised up, his shoulder open to the bone,

his forearm numb, his left knee cap crushed,

his rifle pointing at nothing.

11(close-up) Johnny: BUCK !!

12(one-shot) the Eagle felt his guts explode

as a rifle slug tore apart his abs. Johnny

clenched his teeth, dropped his Winchester,

sinking to his knees. Both hands went to his

screaming bowels, holding them in, keeping

them from rolling out into the dust.

13(medium wide shot) The firing stopped. 

Johnny could hear the chickens, the windmill

creaking over the ranch well, and the sound

of the bunkhouse front door opening.

     The gunman from the bunkhouse walked out

slowly onto the porch, his rifle cradled over his

left arm, and a pistol in his right hand. 

14(sound cue) guitar.

15(medium close up) He was a big man, with a

dirty face and a shapeless hat.

16(medium wide shot) He took a few steps into

the yard, his eyes riveted on Johnny, waiting for

the Eagle to reach for the gun at his elbow; but

Johnny just sat there, his eyes to the ground,

holding his guts in. The brigand raised his pistol.

17(sound cue) three shots, fanned almost as one,

blasted across the yard.

18(one-shot) one bullet hit him in the throat, piercing

a hunk of chewing tobacco--one slug struck him

near his heart; blood splattered into the air. The third

hunk of angry lead hit him in the left eye. His body

leaped backwards, like someone had jerked him

with a rope. He pirouetted to the ground like he had

been run over by a stagecoach, dead in the dive.

19(cut to one-shot) Buck stood in the corral, blood

running from the gash in his temple, down over the

side of his face, the Thunderer and the Navy Colt

puffing faint blue smoke.

20(sound cue) piano and harmonica.

21(close-up) the sweat and blood stung in the 

corner of his eyes, and he couldn’t focus on

anything. He shook his head violently. It didn’t

help. He stumbled over to the corral rails, and

leaned against them. He holstered the 

Thunderer, returning it to its cage. He tossed the

Navy Colt into the dirt. The left side of his face

stung as the heat from the flaming ranch house

danced across it. 

22(wide shot) He stared at the house. The flames 

sprang hundreds of feet into a poppy red sky, as

the hungry fire consumed the barn and the house.

23(two-shot) the palomino carriage horse, his

gentle eyes on Buck, sat with his legs under him,

still harnessed to his dead companion.

      Buck struggled over to Johnny. The Eagle did

not look up, kept staring at the ground holding his

stomach. Buck knelt down, wiping the blood from

his eyes, shaking his head as more rolled in from  

the wound. The fires raged behind them.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at  dVerse Poets Pub OLN