My Busker

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My Busker

“I have done my share of busking--

it’s fun until it isn’t.”--Andrew Bird.

I walked out of Winco

              yesterday,         & in the corner of my eye

I saw her

before I heard her, a middle-aged woman

                                       sitting on the sidewalk,

                                       her back to the store,

               wearing a tattered black hoodie

               over a brown plaid shirt, her levis

torn at the knees, 

without make-up, with a prominent nose,

               gray streaks in her stringy

               bobbed dyed-blond tresses,

with piercing green-violet eyes twinkling

behind cat’s eye glasses          that were held together

                                                 with white medical tape, sitting

               on a soiled green couch cushion

               on a colorful Indian blanket, playing

a battered black acoustic guitar        ( poorly ),

               it’s strap of dirty clothes line around her neck,

using a sun-yellow-orange pick

that was cracked at the edges

like her fingernails,        singing BLOWING IN THE WIND

( off-key), both               the instrument & her voice,

accompanied by an old black Pug,

                                       his fur & muzzle mostly

                                       gray-white, who

panted, snorted & howled along with the “music”.

I saw all of this in a glance

while walking to my car

in the rain--that & her open guitar case

                  with four single dollar bills

                               dotting the bright red velveteen innards.

Jesus, lady, where the hell are you from,

& what the hell are you thinking?

I strongly dislike, am disturbed

by panhandlers & beggars, always

                   pulled emotionally

                   in several directions.       But then I stopped,

                    as the rain let up a little. I stood

with my wet naked hands gripping the handle

of the shopping cart tightly, 

my knuckles turning white.       I could still hear her,

                     now singing LADIES OF THE CANYON.

I turned & pushed the cart

back to the store

& paused in front of her.          She smiled up at me

                                         while singing, with a mouthful

                   of bad teeth, as I saw a purple-green bruise

on her left cheek. She looked directly into

                   my eyes, & whatever her story or her 

situation, for that moment I loved her,

                   & she knew it.

I dropped a five dollar bill

into her guitar case just as

three other shoppers stopped

to listen to her, reaching for their spare change.

                    

                     I touched the bill of my ball cap

                     in farewell, & rushed to my SUV,

my cheeks wet with both

shame & pride, 

                  my tears both           salty & sweet

dripping over my smiling lips.

When I got home

I told my wife about this woman,

& she insisted that we drive back there

to support her efforts,

                 but when we arrived, she

                 was already gone. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Ready

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Ready

“We will never be totally ready--so guess that means

that we are as ready as we will ever be.”

--Neal Shusterman.

Troy was from Tenino,

                        a tiny whistlestop rural town

                        in Washington, but close enough

to several military bases to feel/hear the shaking

from heavy ordinance, & often see choppers,

                                                        fighter jets, &

                                                        bombers

                         in the cloudy gray skies.

His father owned Thompson Garage,

                         & one day if he could,

                                    he would return there to

                                                    take his place alongside

his older brother, so that the old man

could                                           finally retire.            They were

            a family of hunters, which was the perfect

            segue into his military career. 

Today Troy is a weapons specialist trainer

            for the Infantry at JBLM.

He was the all-American poster boy

for those homegrown patriots

that quietly joined the armed services

in order to ready this country’s Military

                      to honor our obligations

                      in the Middle East,

                      Africa, & the

                      NATO countries, strapping

unsung soldiers that hoped to actively counterpoint

             the media attention on all the 

             fucking street thugs & illiterate

             gang-bangers who were being

             recruited on-line for Jihad;

and in his strong young heart

he believed that if there ever was 

            Peace in the Middle East, 

                       in his lifetime, then he would

train men to fight in the mountains & jungles

of South America, or the desolation within the

Korean peninsula.

In his spare time, he kept polishing

his own marksman skills, so

                               that perhaps one day he could join

                      one of the outstanding Sniper Squads;

could wear a rad Ghillie suit for concealment.   He was already

                                                   rated expert with the M24 SWS,

                                    with its light Kevlar, graphite, & fiberglass

                stock, its 100X scope, two-foot barrel & its detachable

bipod--able to hit a shirt button at a thousand yards.

Personally, his preferred sidearm was still the M1911 .45 ACP,

a bit bulky, but with twice the stopping power

of the standard issue 9 mm pop guns.        Sure, he could

          handle an M4 carbine just fine, but his

          220 pound, 6’3” muscular frame loved

                             to carry the M26 MASS 12 gauge shotgun,

outfitted with a clip; much sweeter than the old 500 MILL pumps.

He dearly loved to pull Outpost Duty, where

                          he could use the M249 SAW with the STANG

                          magazine, with three M320 hand-held grenade

launchers leaning up on the sand bags, armed with the old standby

M67 fragmentation grenades--& when he could manage it

he would keep a M3 MAAWS anti-tank recoilless rifle as a back-up. 

He felt confidant that single-handedly

he could hold off fifty Islamic commandos.    Secretly, he was more

                       than anxious to put his boots on the ground

                       in Iraq or Syria--he had already

filled out the paperwork requesting volunteer non-combat

               within the elite squads of weapons trainers

               who were already there in the shit.   Damn it,

this Raghead Rebellion needed to have every swinging

Islamic dick beheaded, then chopped up into camel meat

sandwiches that could be freeze-wrapped & sent to their

training camps. 

He proudly stood with, & was ready to lead

tens of thousands of others, all eager

                             to test their training,

                             to do their duty,

                             to preserve Democracy,

                             & kick some raghead butt:

                             

OOH-RAH,

Hoo-ah,

Fuck yeah!

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Blackthorne : Scene 30

image from rockislandauction.com 

Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Thirty

Whiskey Words

“There is no bad whiskey--there are only some whiskeys that

aren’t as good as others.”--Raymond Chandler.

1(medium wide shot) Interior of the General Store. Inside, surrounded

by mercantile dust & odors, wide shelves of canned goods, calico 

dresses, bolts of bold cottons on fat rolls, barrels of pickles & pigs feet, 

stacks of potted meat, jars of stick candy & chocolate hunks, dried fruit, 

fat pork sausages hanging on long links, with shiny new farm tools 

mounted on rough-hewn beams overhead, & well oiled polished rifles 

resting on brass pegs,

2(medium close-up) Wallace’s face changed, relaxed;

3(two-shot) as he pulled down a dun earthen jug from a dark corner

behind colorful jars of homemade jam,

4(close-up) and he cheerfully poured out sticky-sweet pungent home--

distilled white whiskey into tall tin cups.

5(sound cue) clarinet riff & saloon player piano.

6(medium close-up) Buck accepted a cup & quickly took three big gulps

of the who-hit-John. His eyes bugged out a bit, & his cheeks fluttered, as

he gasped for air, having survived the alcoholic fire in his throat as it

puddled molten in his surprised stomach.

--Buck: Oooowheeew, damn your eyes, this juice could kill ticks!

7(close-up) Wallace smiling, then it faded quickly as he sipped his drink.

--Too bad about Barnes, hope to hell he pulls through.

8(two-shot) The storekeeper got Buck’s attention.

--Wallace: He’s a good man, & a damned good barber. Guess he just

pumped his jaw once too much about Baron Bronson. Barbers have

loose lips, worse than bartenders. Maybe there’s a lesson to be

learned there. 

9(close-up) Buck: No disrespect, Pard, but that’s a full crock of shit.

10(close-up) Wallace raised his eyebrows like two caterpillars with broken

backs, narrowing his eyes.

11(two-shot) after a tense moment,

--Buck: It didn’t gallop in like that.

--Wallace, calmly: My gut tells me those two gunnies ride for Bronson.

--Buck: Yeah, they probably do.

--Wallace: His fucking highness has never been so blatant before; this

is a real shift in his reign of power.

12(sound cue) Harmonica & snare drum.

13(close-up) Buck:

--Those cowardly assholes were not gunning for Barnes.

14(close-up) Wallace:

--What are you muttering about?

15(two-shot) Both men stare at each other while silently sipping

their whiskey

--Buck: Pretty sure they were after me.

--Wallace: Why? Bronson doesn’t know you yet?

--Buck: You heard me talking to the sheriff--I had a row with his

little brother, Paully, over to the pig wallow. It ended with me tossing

his woman-battering butt out a second story window.

--Wallace: Yeah, that might could be, but shit like that happens over

there all the time.

16(medium close-up) Buck:

--I know when lead has my name on it.

17(medium close-up) Wallace:

--You think pretty highly of yourself.

18(sound cue) cello, saxophone & piano.

19(close-up) Buck chuckling:

--Damn, old man, why don’t you tell me what you really think?

20(two-shot)

--Wallace: My boy, you only been in town a couple of hours & you

already got scorpions in your boots; that is fucked up.

--Buck: Uh-huh, I hear that dog barking.

21(close-up) Wallace:

--I suppose this all means you’ll be riding on.

22(close-up) Buck:

--Too many people would like that. No, think I’ll be sticking

around for a piece. 

23(sound cue) Indian snake rattle & jazz brushing. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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Muscle Rides

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Muscle Rides

“Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed

overcomes the fear of death.”--Hunter S. Thompson.

It is a natural fact

          that I have the mechanical aptitude

                                  of a fruit gnat, and yet,

                                                god damn yet,

as a kid I still had the burning need

                                 to own muscle cars;

pulsate with that American power,

hum with those twin glass packs, 

feel the heat from the wide-assed manifolds,

to be able to rip up beauteous clouds

                                 of rubber smoke, listening

to the banshee screech

                                 of steel belted rear tires  

                                              being torn to pieces, burying

the cars behind me

in a heroic cloud of blue-black raw nearly-inexorable acceleration,

stalwartly serving

my youthful need for speed.

I once owned

a 1934 Plymouth three windowed coupe

with a tilt-out two-piece windshield

                     that my Dad & I dropped

                     a 1947 289 flat-head Six into,   split the manifold,

mounted on twin carbs, then painted it          ice-metallic blue,

                     that a guy at work fell in love with,

& immediately traded me straight across

            for his 1957 Ford Fairlane

            two-door hardtop, with

            a three-speed conversion on the floor,

            two-toned red & white

                      with thick golden stripes 

                      in the middle of the wide side chrome

& that cool flat hood

that popped up backwards, leaving

                      plenty of room to install a tri-power set-up,

                                                  three thirsty two-barrels

                                                  hooked together with progressive

                                                  linkage, a monster

that could burn rubber for a thousand yards

from a dead stop

as I wore out a brand new set

of Firestones, turned them into

baby-butt baldies in one month,

                            with enough power to jerk your head back;

that at some point just scared the shit out of me,

like owning a rogue stallion that only wanted

to gallop, so

                             I traded it to a friend for

                             a 1941 Chev coupe that he

had put a 327 into,

dressing it up with Corvette valve covers

& a wide shiny air cleaner on the

Rochester big-mouth four-barrel

                             that would suck all the air 

                             out of the county when you put your foot

to the floor, bolted up to a

GMC truck transmission that had car gears in it,

but leaving the stock axles.                I popped the clutch one rainy night

                                    while drag-racing,

                                    & blew the shit out of the transmission

                                    & snapped both axles, making me

                                    gush out of my master cylinders

leaving me with no brakes 

as I hit a hydrant to stop myself. 

Later on, before leaving for LA

to become a famous actor (smile),

                  I bought an Aztec Gold

                  1968 SS Impala convertible,

with a factory four-speed,

& a 396 under the hood, & I drove it so hard,

                  getting scratch in third gear,

                                      pegging the speedometer

                                      running north & south on I-5

                   flying by Jaguars & Cadillacs & Lincolns,

that ultimately I fried

the compression & oil rings,

& had to sell it cheap

to a Hispanic neighbor in Hollywood after

                   I ran out of duct tape to patch

                   all the knife slashes on my convertible top

                   inflicted by other Mexicans who disliked

where I chose to park, but

when those gas prices began to soar

& the gas lines grew longer,

& we were all scared enough

to be conditioned into accepting petroleum rape,

                            I traded in my jet-black Mustang fastback,

                            with the 351 Cleveland fuel-guzzling mill

for a fire engine red Nissan 

with a 5-speed transmission

& my first four-banger romance, & I got to tell you

                             that once you start buying Jap cars

                you get totally hooked on them, & soon

        there is this parade of Toyotas, Nissans, Mazdas, 

Suzukis & Isuzus sitting in your driveway,

                              and those sexy muscle cars of my youth 

                              sat in other garages, owned

by silly wonderful old men, who could not

let go of those thrills, looks, sounds

of American muscle.                         I just snap photos of those cars

                                      now, & (happily) pilot my Toyota hybrid Camary,

                            enjoying my 42 mpg sedan comfort,

                  & only once or twice a week

         do I see someone else’s muscle car, hear it

purr by while racking its pipes,

& that old stirring

kicks up hard. 

                              

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Broken News

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Broken News

“I have no time for your fucking negativity.”

--Anonymous.

Jennifer Lopez’s Abs Game 

              has become Next Level;

She has just completed          a 22-day Vegan diet,

& has been quoted as saying:

              Hey, I really enjoyed it. 

              You never know how good you can feel

                                               until you put healthy food

               into your body.         Well, hell, at 45

years of age she still is holding it all together, 

& getting headlines by flashing her bra & abs. 

Bladerunner, Oscar Pistorius, was sentenced

to five years in prison. He was taken to an overcrowded

                       maximum security facility

                       Kogosi Mampuru II, where

he will be held away 

           from the general population, secondary

                      to his disability & high profile. 

                                He is eligible for parole in ten months,

when he will stay under house arrest for the remainder of 

his term of sentence. 

A Florida sheriff’s deputy is now facing felony charges

after officials         found out        that he accepted

                   oral sex            from a woman

in exchange for not arresting her; imagine that.

Here in WA state,

Gavin Seim, a former congressional candidate

                        flagged down a police officer

who was patrolling in an unmarked car. 

                        In WA, police can only use

                                    unmarked cars for undercover work;

otherwise how can citizens pulled over

                                    by them really know if they are legitimate;

too many thugs out there pulling over women

for robbery, extortion, or rape. 

As I prepare for my next colonoscopy,

                     I read where Andrew Walls, 32, claims

that Delaware surgeons dressed him

                        in sexy pink women’s panties

                        while he was under anesthetic.

The doctors claimed it was simply

                                            an outrageous prank perpetrated

by some of his own unsavory colleagues; regardless,

                        he is suing for extreme emotional distress.

I guess they left out the pantie liner. 

Marion Williams,

a bachelor living in a rural area

            of Northern CA,            suffered a heart attack,

while outside, & died. Shortly after that, his corpse

was dragged off into the woods

           & eaten by a black bear; who stripped

him of his clothes

& feasted on his corpse for several days,

eating 85% of his body;

           Relatives are considering suing

the U.S. Forest Service for gross negligence. 

Jillian Michaels, a weight trainer

          for the TV show BIGGEST LOSER,

says that she is uncomfortable

                                     discussing her 

                                     lesbian lifestyle, 

Breaking News--Famous artist Banksy

                           was not arrested yesterday

at 3 in the morning, supposedly

                           apprehended by the

24 Hour Anti-Graffiti Task Force,

& his name is definitely not

                                      Paul Horner. 

                                      Thank God

it all turned out to be a silly hoax.

Daniela Poggiali,

a critical care nurse in Italy

was arrested for murdering

                      38 of her patients

over a five year period, who simply

                      Annoyed her. 

This is Glenn Buttkus, thank you for joining me this afternoon,

& letting me share the pertinent news of the day.

                       

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

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