Flame Harnessing

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Flame Harnessing

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single

candle; happiness never decreases by being

shared.”--Buddha.

After man discovered how to create & control fire,

it was inevitable that he would learn to encase

a burnable wick in wax in order to light his way,

& even more inevitable that he would soon

thereafter begin to use candles to represent

religious significance & symbolism.

During Colonial times one lit a single candle

in the window to welcome home family travelers,

and later, for many, the single candle stood for

the Star of Bethlehem, or for Jesus as the

Light of the World. Three candles meant

the holy trinity.

The Buddhists light candles in front of

Buddhist shrines or statues to signify

both the light of Buddha’s teachings

& of impermanence & change in life.

We find the Menorah in Jewish Temples

& homes, holding eight candles, lighting

one for each day of Hanukkah, representing

the oil that burned in the Temple for 8 nights.

Most prominently, we find those decorative racks

of votive candles in Catholic churches, usually

facing a shrine of Jesus or Mary or both,

placed in colorful jars or holders.

Lighting some of these candles somehow

intensifies one’s prayers for the safe return

or improved health of a loved one, &

all kinds of special circumstances.

It is important to understand the color coding 

on votive candles:

--green for prosperity, growth, & vitality,

--white for eternal life, enlightenment, the color of joy,

--red for sacrifice, love, & passion,

--gold for eternal life or victory,

--blue for Lent or Easter, trust & faith,

--purple, often lit during Advent, to express

remorse & repentance.

On a lighter note (smile), people who

have been known to bake 100 foot wide pizzas,

or waffles that could cover a table, set out

to create the World’s Biggest Candle.

It seems the Americans have triumphed

in this endeavor with the humungous 

Caruso Candle built in Centreville, Indiana,

standing 80 feet tall, 8 feet in diameter.

Every year on Caruso’s birthday, I guess

they put a large singing tenor in a crane basket,

& lift him up to the top while he holds a blow torch--

God, I’d love to witness that celebration. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Friday the 13th

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Friday the 13th

“Friday the 13th doesn’t mean a thing to me. My

luck sucks every day--so what’s the difference?”

--Rodney Dangerfield.

Tis

the most

dreaded day

of the year;

Mickey Spillane,

Julia Child,

Chet Baker,

Tupac Shakur,

all died

on it;

the Costa Concordia

hit a rock

& sunk

on it.

Fridays

have been

considered unlucky

ever since

Christ

was crucified

on one. 

12 

has a

completeness;

13

is a

transgression--

or

it might be

lucky.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on G-Man's Flash 55

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Hearth Song

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Hearth Song

“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul,

& yet no one ever came to sit by it.”--Vincent Van Gogh.

Our house was 

built in 1953, 1,500 square

feet upstairs, with

a full daylight

basement. We assumed residence in

1993, inheriting a

home already inhabited

by spiritual passers-by; both

frightening & fascinating.

Never the same

figures, all strangers just trying

to get home

themselves, trying to

find their way through the

maze of separate

dimensions, who stopped

to rest at our hearth,

before moving on,

resuming their journey;

a couple on the love

seat, a soldier

in a WWI

uniform, a young girl in

a shawl, holding

a rag doll,

a teenager in a poodle

skirt, a logger

wearing plaids; fully

revealed, just politely visiting, attracted

to our fire.

Our fireplace is

massive, a double-decker, with

full hearths upstairs

& down, with

a complicated fleu system, its

tiles fire-baked.

At first we

used it a lot, buying

several cords of

wood, & stacking

it on new pallets alongside

the house, &

yes, we fully

enjoyed the primeval fascination of

staring into open

flames, listening to

it hiss as it consumed

alder, fir, &

pine, warming ourselves

by sitting on its rainbow

rock shelf, &

there were several

winters that we kept the

home fires burning

for weeks unending;

but somehow, the love affair

waned, as enforced

burn bans, the

outrageous cost of firewood, the

filth & clutter

left on rugs

from hauling fuel to feed

its dragon maw,

& miscalculations with

the fleu, smoking up the

whole house, just

soured our ardor.

Now the basement fireplace is

covered with plywood,

then further mantled

with moveable shelves of DVDs,

erasing its existence.

Upstairs we keep

the tall brass shield erect

to discourage our

tiny grandchildren from

crawling up into it; standing

cold--flameless for

years; just remaining

decorative, something to hang holiday

swags & wreathes

upon, stones to 

dust, a silent roommate, a

mute companion, where

Hestia & Vesta

no longer hold court, abandoned

by janyas &

specters alike. Maybe

we ought to rekindle that

flame this winter,

& let them

all know that we miss

their visits, &

now they are

more than welcome to drop

back in--to

enrich our home

life, to be recipients of

our genuine hospitality,

to rebuild our

connection to the portals covered

with sad ash. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Murderous Mews

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Murderous Mews

“You have the freedom to be yourself, Jonathan, your

true self, here & now, & nothing can stand in your way.”

--Richard Bach.

Once more, Nature 

has been molested by man, forced

to be an unwilling participant in a new

unbalanced oceanic rape scenario.

The Southern Right Whales, reduced

from a population of 50,000 a hundred

years ago, to a modern day population

of 7,000 world-wide--have always

migrated to the warm Patagonian waters

near Argentina, to the Valdes Peninsula,

swarming in large birthing pods near

the bustling city of Puerto Madryn.

Each year 200,000 tourists spend 40 million

dollars, flocking there in July-December

to watch the majestic mammals breach

the water. leaping magnificently into the air,

& then displaying their regal tails;

but these days hundreds of tourist ships

stay tethered to their docks, because

the magical whale watching has become

a horror movie, something out of the 

fevered mind of Alfred Hitchcock.

The Kelp Gull population has exploded

during the past few years, since Chubat

province Argentineans have erected

huge open air garbage dumps, & they

continue a policy of tossing fish parts

from local seafood packing plants

directly into the ocean.

Always ravenous, these carnivore gulls

have discovered that they could score

easy meals by attacking the whales;

diving down onto them when they surface

for air, driving their sharp beaks & claws

first into the rubbery flesh, & then tearing

off five foot strips of sweet blubber.

Adult whales suffer hundreds of deep lesions,

but seldom die of the terrible wounds; they

have learned to arch their backs underwater,

only surfacing their blowholes before diving again;

so the real victims are the whale calves, from

2-6 weeks old, with their softer skin, & a tendency

to linger in the warmer shallow waters where

they are fed 25 gallons of floating mother’s milk

daily; being lipless, they cannot suckle.

It is said that the macabre torment of the whales

is a nightmarish dirge, sounding like a punishment

from vengeful gods of the deep. 80% of these

Southern Right Whales suffer from gull-inflicted

wounds, but it is the vulnerable calves that are

dying at an alarming rate.

Argentinean politicians are not suggesting

going green, processing their garbage properly,

or disposing of fish parts more efficiently,

no--

rather they are sending out police patrol boats

with orders to shoot the gulls doing the attacking,

& then dispose of their bodies quickly so that

marine life do not feast on them & ingest

the ammunition as well, further upsetting

the ecological imbalance.

Like the nearly forgotten plight of the drowning

polar bears, this is just another manifestation

of man’s hubris, ignorance, & arrogance;

one day soon the whales will just stop coming,

and maybe the killer gulls will start attacking

people out of their frustration

and madness. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN126
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Ecila's Rorrim

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Ecila’s Rorrim

“You are eternity, and you are the mirror.”

--Kahil Gibran.

Ecila was a young poet,

who lived alone in a rented cottage

in the countryside, and she was spending

her first winter there.

The realtor who found the cottage for her,

gave her his assurances that the lovely

domicile was fit & hardy--& the perfect place

for a young writer to find inspiration;

his name was Charles L. Dodgeson.

One cold wintry eve, with flames roaring

in the fireplace, Ecila sat comfortably

in a tall red armchair, with her two kittens

playing at her feet, 

one white (Snowdrop), 

& one black (Kitty)--finding

the yin/yang feline combo 

perfect as companions.

She held a large tablet on her lap, favoring

the bright yellow legal pad to write upon;

working on the beginnings of a poem,

wanting to explore a metaphysical theme

of overlapping dimensions, alternate worlds,

extended entity personalities, & time travel.

A tall full-length mirror stood on its stately

brass pedestal near the fireplace, & the flames

glowed sweetly in its depths.

Something prompted Ecila to look up,

& to her surprise, her own reflection

was inaccurate; she was standing

somewhere wearing a black & white

waitress outfit, with a short red apron.

She was fascinated as she rose

& approached the tall glass portal.

There was a bustling diner on the other side,

decorated with fairy tale murals;

Jabberwocky’s Joint

read the neon sign hanging over

the ice cream/soda bar.

Oddly, she could no longer see

her own reflection in the scene,

so she leaned in closer & could hear

both Elvis & the Everly Brothers

tunes blasting out of large flower pots

that looked like jukeboxes, 

& the brightly colored flowers

were singing the lyrics.

“Alice, my girl, where is my Big Man burger?”

She turned to face the customer,

who was a very rotund man, barely

able to sit upon the two chairs he

had scooted together.

“Coming right up, Hump--don’t get excited

& fall off your chairs again,” she said,

heading for the kitchen.

“Well hustle up, princess--you know that

I am celebrating my unbirthday again today!”

The floor was made up of large black & white

squares, like a huge chess board, & the chrome

furniture all had pink, red, & green tops.

“Alice, babe, our fave shorty,” 

said the two white rappers,

T-Dum & T-Dee, in harmony,

“Don’t forget our two hot fudge mondies.”

The other older waitress whizzed past her; everyone

called her Red, because of her Lucy-dyed tresses.

“Sunny today, but bundle up tomorrow 

because we are expecting icy snain,” 

warbled a blond weather girl on television, 

all dressed in white to match her platinum curls.

Finally reaching the huge kitchen door,

she swung it open & found herself facing

herself in a tall mirror, where her Alice

name tag looked like it read Ecila.

She suddenly awoke to kittens purring,

a fire crackling, & the winter wind howling

outside, and for a moment she

could not recognize her world,

could not separate the dreamscape

from the landscape;

but then as the room pulled 

into focus, she began to scribble madly 

on her note pad

and a new poem 

began to emerge from

her pen.

Glenn Buttkus

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Miracle in the Burbs

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Miracle in the Burbs

“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time

we love, every time we give--it’s Christmas.”

--Dale Evans.

I still live

in a

small town,

where

Christmas

carolers stand

in the cold

serenading

us,

where

Santa sits

on a

fire truck

and cruises

the neighborhood,

where tree farms

are just

blocks

away,

where

store window

displays

look like

Norman Rockwell,

where

the reason 

for

the season

is

thriving

lovingly

within

every heart,

every home.

Glenn Buttkus

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The Greatest Gift

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The Greatest Gift

“All men die, nations may rise & fall,

but an idea lives on.”--JFK.

Some truths are hidden beneath fear, mandates,

codes, & various interpretations of morality--

even so if one truly loves another,

would they have the authentic courage

to let them go--if the loved one wished it so?

Perhaps the greatest, most poignant & painful gift

of all is to allow our loved ones the RTD:

Right to Die, to embrace, or orchestrate

death with dignity;

Most of us tend to dismiss this Gift

as non-viable, not to be considered;

that is until cancer or some other

terminal illness invades our insulated lives,

and we find ourselves terribly tangled up

in matters of morality, mortal sin, euthanasia,

living wills & Do Not Resuscitate orders--

or when we are suddenly designated as a

Medical Durable Power of Attorney.

Sometimes this ethical conundrum raises

its death-head whenever a celebrity

commits suicide secondary to a

terminal illness or depression; folks like--

Hunter S. Thompson,

                  Kurt Cobain,

                       Pedro Armandariz,

                                       Brian Keith 

                                             Ernest Hemingway

                                                         Spalding Gray

                                              Sylvia Plath

                                      Charles Boyer

                          Richard Farnsworth

             Jonathan Winters

          Roger Ebert

   Nick Drake.

There are those of us who believe

that if a person is still of sound mind,

has a terminal illness, 

and is not under duress or pressure

from a family that wishes them gone,

they should have the right, the entitlement

to participate in a physician--assisted suicide;

and this is legal in only two states;

my home state of Washington is one of them;

where one is given the right to decline

a life-prolonging treatment, often horrific

& lethal itself, in order to continue to exist

as a vegetable, a side of meet housing only

a brain stem, a comatose lump, a zombie,

a bright soul entrapped in a corrupted receptacle--

with the humane proviso, of course, that they

be offered pallative care in order to reduce

unreasonable pain & suffering. 

The Right to Die should be universal,

freely given as a gift of love, never

as a curse or committed sin.

One’s body,

one’s life, are, in fact,

their own, & the Soul

should be given a loving option

to evacuate a deteriorating husk,

in order to soar freely,

and ready itself

for the next

lifetime. 

Glenn Buttkus

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