Grout Chronicles

Grout

My body is achin'
Every muscle is sore.
I really dont thinkI have had
enough sleep

The cabinets are gone
A lot has been done
Been working all week
We've got the new sink

Yet there's still
moreTiles to go
before I ......

Doug Palmer

This kicked off Glenn's creative juices and he responded with some ditties.

Kid Grout

Kid Grout was a short
drink of water,
and it left him
with a hair-trigger temper
and big knuckled hands
that hovered constantly
over the twin pearl-handled .45
Peacemakers
in his black leather belt.

They say he loved the whores
at the Bella Savant,
and one humid afternoon
he shot a miner in the groin
for disrespecting Miss Annie;
who was his favorite.

I guess he loved to play poker too,
and it became his unraveling.
One night in December,
Bart Harte sat himself down
at the beer-stained green felt-covered table,
placing a fat pile of greenbacks
next to a tall stack of twenty dollar gold pieces.
Kid Grout’s pig eyes lit up,
shining with mescal
and arrogance.

The kid drew for an inside straight,
and he didn’t get it;
but he was all in
so like a man who had crapped his britches,
he put on the glower
and bluff, but
the gambler had the full house,
aces over tens.

Kid Grout bellered
like a wasp-stung bear,
and his big hands dove
for the Colts,
dangling from his waist
like great silver cocks;
but Harte had one of those
terrible and tiny one-shot derringers
spring loaded under his coat sleeve,
just above his right wrist.

The fancy pop gun made
it’s small noise,
and the hot slug parted
the kid’s eyebrows,
burrowing like a tick of lightning
knuckle deep into his brain.
Before the Colt twins could bark
death, death itself
like a searing cowled shadow
leaped ravenously upon him
and devoured the light.

Harte played at being
the big man
for about a month,
until two Indians backshot him
in an alley in Tombstone .
I wonder what the hell
he said to Kid Grout
when they met up
in the town of
Glory?

Glenn Buttkus 2007

Grout Fishing in America

Oh how I like to rise
before the sun,
before the cock’s crow,
heavily laden with creel,
spinners, hand-tied flies,
and my new Warshall’s pole;
pushing hard
and swirling up dust
hopping between the washboard ruts
on that twisting road
to Palmer Lake ;
in order to sneak off
to that lonely south end,
where I am willing
to brave the devil’s clubs and skunk cabbage –
because that’s the best spot
to catch the wily grout.

I know that
a lot of serious anglers
won’t bother with grout,
but hell,
I’ve been catching them,
carefully skinning them
of their sharp barbed multiple layered fins,
then flaying that deep purple meat,
dusting them lightly in flour
and frying them up crisp
in bacon grease. Yeah,
it makes me drool
just jawing about it.

I grew up spit poor
and hungry,
and I learned the hard way
that a lot of critters exist
that can be eaten
if you get your damned mind right;
rats, snakes, slugs, crows, weasels, marmot, and fire ants
amongst others.

We used to guffaw
that in our small town
the chicken joint was really
Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried
Buzzard.
It probably was.

Grout will bite on bright flies
or worms, or juicy fruit wrappers,
or raw hamburger.
They look prehistoric
what with their third eye, double tail,
and spiny fins;
but I am here to tell you,
you ain’t truly lived
until you have eaten one.

If you are curious enough,
Gimme’ a jingle.
I got a dozen of ‘em
in my freezer.

Glenn Buttkus 2007

G r o u t t

Groutt is a grouch
who lives under my porch
near the tiny stream
under the house
that runs diagonally
north to east.

Judging from the smell
that wafts up from his den
he lives on trout
and earwigs and earthworms
and perhaps
the odd handful of dry
cat crunchers.

I have never actually seen
Groutt.
He may be a troll
or possibly that dwarf
bus driver
that disappeared last summer.

I do think
that his name is Groutt
because he growled
something like that
one time
when I peered into his domicle.
Or maybe it was “Out!”

I just leave him
Alone,
And I hope he appreciates
the lack of attention.

Glenn Buttkus 2007

Doug has put me in a silly state of mind, and here is another poem that suffers from terminal cuteness.

Hugs: Butch


Cheez Almighty

Cheez, cheez,
Oh Jeez;
do you think our Savior
liked any kind of Cheez
on his unleavened bread?
Dude had all kinds of wine,
so why not the Cheez?

And then there was Lincoln ,
who it is said
scarfed down a fried peanut butter
and Cheez sandwich
before he took his seat
in the balcony of Ford’s Theater,
waiting to have his skull
perforated.

Even Attila,
the nasty Hun,
turned back his mighty horde
from the massive gates
of Rome
because the wily pope
gave him several hundred pounds
of Cheez.

I read where
Lewis told Clark
to chew cascara bark
to alleviate a severe case of constipation
brought on strong
and fully induced by the over ingestion
of Native American Cheez.

You know
Superman and Batman
do hang out at Palmer’s Pizza joint
in Gotham ,
where Supe gobbles
Cheez Whizz sundaes,
and the Bat
craves and consumes the hot sausage
stinky Cheez calzone.

Hell,
Cheez is cool,
when it’s not hot,
stretching out two feet
from plate to lip.
Either way,
dig it while your colon
is still Cheez friendly.

Glenn Buttkus 2007