Those Silver Bones

image from pugetsoundferries.com

 Those Silver Bones

“I don’t know what it is, but there is just something

extraordinary about the Kalakala.”--Steve Russell.

There once was an Art Deco ferry boat called the

Kalakala. It was launched in 1935 as a ray of hope

during the Depression. It was like a Buck Rogers

space ship churning her way through Puget Sound,

like a Flash Gordon mini-ocean liner, turning heads

for 25 years, like a king-sized turkey roaster with a 

double row of perfect round portholes marching along

each side, one on the car deck, and one for the 

passengers above. A huge flying bridge protruded

out over the bow, capturing a hammerhead profile,

with two tall bow doors opening to a slender bow,

pointed like a sea bird’s beak, like a great shiny sea-

going Indian war canoe--a majestic proud polished

Dali vessel. 

She was decommissioned in 1960. A Californian

bought it to make a restaurant and casino out of

it. It sailed down the coast on its own steam. That

dream failed, and it was bought, and towed to Kodiak

Island in Alaska where it became a rusty scrap heap.

A guy in Seattle bought it, and docked it on the

south end of Lake Union, where it continued to 

deteriorate. In 2012 it was sold for one dollar to

a fellow in Tacoma who towed it to a dock in the

Waterway. After a year, it begin to list starboard,

sadly sinking. She became a hazard to other ships,

so they pumped her bilges and righted her.That’s 

when I met her.

 She was at an industrial dock, not open to the

public. I got permission to photograph it. She was

docked near an empty office trailer. There was a

weather-beaten sign that read--See the Kalakala;

soon to be restored. The sign was rotting, and was 

smeared with sea gull crap. 

There she was, the Silver Lady. She was aware of 

me as she preened and posed. Her bow doors were 

sprung open, an invite for gulls and crows. There were

two huge truck tires hanging starboard to protect her

from the dock. Her beautiful Native American name 

was covered up with plywood, her stainless steel 

railings were twisted and bent up along her upper deck, 

the flying bridge was pummeled with broken porthole 

glass, her car deck was greasy and splintered, her

stylish benches and tables were lop-sided, she was

pock-marked everywhere with rust holes and

barnacle blemishes, straining like an old athlete rising 

up on shaky timbers one more time, but too arthritic to 

take a bow during her final applause.

I captured images until I began to lose the light,

then just stood there for a while watching her patina

edges soften. I felt like I had experienced an

audience with exiled royalty.  

In ’58 I

saw her shining glorious

in Elliott Bay.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub MTB

This is not the American Flag

image from cnn.com

 This is not the American Flag

“I cannot trust a man to control others who

cannot control himself.”--Robert E. Lee

It certainly is not Old Glory.

It is not sung about in the Star Spangled Banner.

Nor is it the Founding Father’s Flag, made by

Miss Betsy, with 13 stars in a circle.

It is not the one with an eagle in the middle of a

neat circle of 28 stars.

Nor is it the 25 star flag with a stray star in a 

line all by itself.

It is not even the 25 star flag, with a huge star

in the middle.

It is not the flag with concentric circles of stars,

with a big one in the middle.

Nor is it the “X” of stars, with extras on the edge.

And it certainly is not the 48-49-50 star flag

I would stand and pledge allegiance to every

morning of public school.

It is not our national treasured ensign.

Nor is it the battleship flag I picked up while in

the Navy.

No, it is a traitor’s battle rag,

a treasonous flag of slavery

                             of the KKK

                             of Jim Crowe

                             of racism

                             of lynchings

                             of murderous rednecks, good old boys

with M-15’s, Nazi sentiments, and Fascist fantasies.

Thank the angels of reason, it is finally

recognized as a pariah, and can no longer be

allowed to fly alongside Southern state flags,

becoming something horrendous, waving too often

in the hands of insurrectionists, American Nazis, Proud
Boys, Qenon, white supremacists and anarchists, 

backed by thousands of rabid Trumpers as they

defecated and urinated in the sacred halls of Congress

on January 6th . 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Bloodshot

image from pinterest.com

 Bloodshot

“Eyes are the window to the soul, especially if they

are bloodshot.”--Curtis Jackson.

When

you awaken

to a damn stye

in either eye

one must not

dab at it.

A formidable

infection

could ensue.

Always irritating,

a stye can

force you into

an emotional

roundabout.

Go

to the ophthalmologist,

and get that

unreadable prescription

for eye drops.

Glenn Buttkus

Quadrille

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Crimsontide

image from pinterest.com

 Crimsontide

Jesus wept as he said, “Whoever shall humble himself

as a little child is great in kingdom.” (Matthew 18:4)

Those logs of Yule, 

cohorts of candy canes,

and devastated forests

are upon us; many of the

children are hushed, awed, and frightened 

by the raw pain found in the faces

of Christ on those multi-cultural crucifixes,

grimacing in silver, ivory, and gold.

Confusion reigns as myths and scripture

mingle like newts and mushrooms

in a Celtic Germanic Middle Eastern pastiche,

as every year concludes under an aluminum,

plastic, or dying rootless tree, flocked, bound

in popcorn, icicles, blinking lights, hallmark bulbs,

and wooden ornaments, on a designated day

linked mysteriously to St. Nicholas, 

Father Christmas and Tannenbaum, 

then catapulted into the sands of Judea--

to shepherds in rags with their sheep,

and spindle-legged camels carrying kings

to a sky full of angels humming hosannas 

and bending the light, to wise men mantled

in bright silks standing in animal dung, kneeling

in it while extending their gifts at the feet 

of a strangely silent babe sitting up 

in its roughly-hewn wooden cradle, while

his mother shivered in the straw, cold and weak

in the shimmering pinlight with the strangers.

Behold as Santa Claus cracks a cruel whip

and magical reindeer from Lapland,

freshly castrated by the teeth of unblushing

virgins, defy gravity, fold back time

and pull a great silver sled across the skies

of the world, everywhere on the planet,

in one night.

Jocular St. Nick always wears his red suit,

fringed in white ermine and baby seal fur,

stretched tight over his girth

like the skin on a German sausage,

the stark white of melting polar caps

and the red drenched in blood,

the red of revolutions, of grievous wounds

of flapping flags, of opium poppies,

and of the Christ to come, 

his hot blood wine becoming the chosen elixir 

of priests, ministers, and evangelists;

the identical crimson stuff scourged from sinners

and infidels during a myriad of Christmas Crusades,

not that long after it had been raked into the parched

earth of Roman arenas before and after

his thirty-three birthdays, where men enslaved

were prodded with hot irons to do battle

with other men and with beasts, and those other

crucified ones could see from their own crosses

the steel meathooks plunged into heels, attached

to plumed braying burros who dragged

the corpses of the cowardly and the fallen

out the Porta Libitina, no bellicus 

on their blackened bleeding lips,

no dirges or prayers, as the corpulent crowds 

sat peeling grapes

and waving holiday handkerchiefs.

The frozen Popsicle in the festive stocking cap

standing next to that red tub ringing a tiny bell

outside Safeway said, “A little child shall lead them

in purity and humility.” But I still wonder 

if the child won’t lose its way subsisting

on fairy tales, lies, and madness.

Glenn Buttkus  

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN

Buk/Buttkus

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Buk/Buttkus

He asked, “What makes a man a writer?”

“Well,” I said,”It’s simple. You either get it down

on paper or jump off a bridge.”

--Charles Bukowski.

Like many of us,

Buk wrote thousands of poems.

Some of them were excellent,

and some of them made poor ass-wipe;

still, he wrote them,

and we need to read them,

all of them, because each one,

each roughshod line of them

drags you into the outrageous world view

of the wrecked alcoholic hulk sexist

barfighter nihilist poet that Buk was.

Oddly, reading him does help me to have more faith

in my own scribbling, my poetic drooling, my true

voice--even though I have barely published jack-

shit, so what--I am heard, I am read, and goddamn

it I see myself clearly, an old actor with good hair

and a well-trained elocution (Buk sucked at those

events where he read his own work). I mean that’s

me out there at Poetry Slams and open mic events,

all me raging against ignorance and malaise, finding

an audience at festivals, on street corners, in men’s

rooms while holding towels for jack-off artists and

fags, on the steps of the Capitol in Olympia, in that

little park adjacent and down the street from the

Pantages in Tacoma, now a homeless camp rife

with poetry lovers, during Sumner Pioneer Days

on the back of a wagon wearing the black cowboy

hat I wore in 1977 while making a Western with

Kurt Russell, at Pow Wows, at picnics, during

break-ins, after muggings, at the stage door of

theaters while plays are being performed, in

women’s restrooms to the beat of tinkling behind

closed stall doors, in restaurant kitchens while

sweaty cooks in hair nets are bustling over greasy

smoky fryers, in the back seat of police cars while

sitting next to drug dealers and whores, adjacent 

to the hipsters leaning against brick walls who are

chewing gum and playing pocket pool, in coffee

houses in the corner over by the Asian imported

CD’s, in public libraries speaking Shakespearian

sonnets sotto voce, in hardware stores next to the

nuts and bolts, at fish canneries, when I can find

them, like the one on the Quinault Indian

Reservation in the shithole of Taholah, with the

busy buskers in that tiny park north of the Public

Market in Seattle, and while reciting Bukowski in a

raspy voice to match his own, salivating as I work

my tongue over his rough words.

Talking about Charles Bukowski, whom I doubt I

would have liked, even though I respect his poetry.

I probably would have gotten into a fist fight with him

in an alley behind some bar. We shared strong arms,

a bad temper and a poor complexion. I do actually

appreciate the audacious raunchy riffs he spewed.

Digesting his rancor, reading him is part of our

poetic rite of passage. You know, when he was

sober, and not too fixated on pussy, the ponies,

wine, beer, or his cock, he did write some about

the injustices he witnessed. Of course, that was

between bar bitches, when he could hold his food

down, when he felt good enough to bathe or shave.

For me, his words get under my skin, and rattle 

around in the empty rooms within, only to rise up

unannounced, rude and brazen, like indigestion

or a fart.

Glenn  Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

340 Dollar Horse And A Hundred Dollar Whore

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me

at the racetrack any day half drunk

betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,

but let me tell you, there are some women there

who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you

look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores

you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke

dealing out so much breast and ass and the way

it’s all hung together, you look and you look and

you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women

and then there is something else that wants to make you

tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven

across the back of the john; anyhow, the season

was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,

all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,

the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners

themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:

a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;

he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly

and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.

the driver broke him wide

took him out by the fence where he’d be alone

even if he had to travel four times as far,

and that’s the way he went it

all the way by the outer fence

traveling two miles in one

and he won like he was mad as hell

and he wasn’t even tired,

and the biggest blonde of all

all ass and breast, hardly anything else

went to the payoff window with me.

that night I couldn’t destroy her

although the springs shot sparks

and they pounded on the walls.

later she sat there in her slip

drinking Old Grandad

and she said

what’s a guy like you doing

living in a dump like this?

and I said

I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.

you? you . . . a poet?

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,

and all thanks to an ugly horse

who wrote this poem.

Charles Bukowski