Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Vampires are Real


image from makeup.lovetoknow.com


Vampires are Real

“The strength of a vampire is that people will not
allow themselves to believe in them.”
--Garrett Fort

I like you too much not to tell you--there are real vampires in 
this world. I am one. I am 72 but I look 35. You know, because
of the tremendous popularity of Vamps in the last twenty years,
& the proliferation of pretender wannabes, it makes it much
easier for us to live amongst you without detection.

You may have noticed that I have a greenish-yellow ring around
my iris, & that I seem short of breath a lot. I pass that off as a
case of asthma. It is unnerving, I’m sure, that when you just
glance at me, I know it, & I stare at you immediately. If you return
my stare, you will not be able to look away until I let you. I have
a thick, heavy aura, but it is not depressing--rather it raises some
euphoric reaction in you.

My fingernails are like clear glass, but are very strong. I sleep in
a bed, not a coffin. I am not immortal, but I live more than a century.
When I’m around, electronic devices often malfunction. I do not appear
to have fangs, but my canines are extra sharp. No one has to be killed 
for blood. We all have relationships with very willing donors, many of 
them Emos. We do substitute blood from herbivores, but blood from pigs & 
chickens is not safe; full of deadly parasites. Sunlight will not kill us, but it 
does make us very uncomfortable, like you having a sunburn, & our eyes 
are super sensitive; thus my constant wearing of cool sunglasses--without 
them we suffer terrible migraines. Consumption of human blood gives us 
immunity to the sun for 2-3 days. 

Sex with a vampire
is heaven cloaked in hell;
something memorable.


Glenn Buttkus


Sunday, October 18, 2015

Pendejo Politico


image from filibuster cartoons,com


Pendejo Politico

“Democracy is when the indignant, & not
the men of property, are the rulers.”
--Aristotle.

Them: Pick your battles, old son--that is wisdom.
Me: How does one breathe air that is rife with industrial toxins?
Them: Just run immediately to Amazon, they carry gas masks.
Me: Do you make a practice out of subterfuge? 
Them: We see that your words are your weapons, pernicious poet!
Me: An observance so deep that I can applaud it.
Them: You consistently put forth a liberal point of view.
Me: You fail at presenting bull shit as truth!
Them: We really lack the energy necessary to deal with you.
Me: So binge on Snickers--food for endurance.
Them: We warn you that you are treading a dangerous path!
Me: Why don’t your ever try to walk the damn walk?

Ask politicians
honest questions & prepare
for bull shit showers.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at The Sunday Whirl


Thursday, October 15, 2015

Blackthorne--Scene 48


image taken from pearltrees.com


Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Forty-Eight

Impasse

“You will not be punished for your anger--you will be
punished by your anger.”--Buddha.

1(medium wide-shot) Suddenly the galloping white stallion smashed
through a prairie dog city, & stumbled. Johnny Eagle took flight, his
legs pitching over his head, & collided with the ground just after big
Jesus did.
2(sound cue) saxophone, coronet, & drum bap.
3(wide two-shot) Buck reined up his Red, pulling back his head, whose
eyes were bulging, his nostrils flaring, hopping, side-stepping but
staying on his hooves, his great heart gushing, with veins & cords
pounding in his neck & chest, his forearms & gaskins cramping.
4(cut to overhead drone medium wide shot) the Appaloosa running on
alone as the riders halted in a white cloud of dust.
5(close-up) Buck, biting his lip, his blue eyes glinting green.
6(sound cue) Johnny’s loud groan over Indian branch flute:
--Que chingados!
7(medium close-up) Buck raised up in the saddle, standing in the stirrups.
--Buck: Son of a bitch!
8(cut to medium wide shot) as the Appaloosa galloped out of sight ducking
into a deep arroyo.
9(cut to a two-shot ) Buck patting the neck of his horse:
--Calm down, big man, it’s fine--there is always tomorrow.
He swung down from the saddle, dropping the reins on the ground, then
squatting next to Johnny--who was sitting up touching himself on the arms
& shoulders; Jesus was up on his feet.
10(sound cue) guitar chords & harmonica.
11(tighter two-shot) angle on Buck:
--Are you hurt, old man?
12(reverse shot) over Buck’s shoulder, angle on Johnny, out of breath:
--That is the fastest horse I have ever seen in my whole fucking life!
13(sound cue) coronet & galloping hooves.
14(cut to static wide shot) the bare lip of an arroyo, just as the Appaloosa
burst into sight, & then halted; swirls of dust danced around him like alkaline
shadows.
15(tighten the wide shot) He whirled around and stared back toward his
pursuers.
16(close-up) the stallion’s head bobbing, neck arched, long mane flying.
We see the horse is winded & has some sweat & saliva lather on his muzzle.
17(cut back to the two men) Buck helping the Indian to his feet.
--Buck: Piss on that bronc! Did you break anything?
--Johnny: Maybe my ass is all. Ay Caramba--I will be useless as tits
on a fence post tomorrow, just a dozen knots of pain all bitching
at once!
Buck smiled a tight grin.
--Johnny: Ay, that horse, that goddamn mancha devil. 
18(medium two-shot) Buck with an arm around the Eagle:
--Today he beat us, stomped us good--but on a different day he
feel our ropes, soon to be lead stud at Antlered Buck. I swear it.
The two men stood there for a moment, as Johnny held onto Buck’s
shoulder--both of them gazing out over the unforgiving salt flats to
the black shadows in the distant arroyo.
--Johnny: You know I think I see him out there watching us.
--Buck: Probably just a trick of the light, wishful thinking.
19(sound cue) Jesus whinnying low over a piano chord.
20(widen the two-shot)
--Johnny: Jesus, you crazy boy, you threw me half a mile.
The silver stallion was standing on three legs, with the right front
one held off the ground. The Eagle knelt next to him, feeling along
the injured leg, examining the new swelling between the knee &
the fetlock.
--Johnny: Damn, you must have been tired, old son, to step in a
hole like that.
--Buck: Do you think it’s broke?
--Johnny: No, I don’t think so. He’s like me, a tough old shit. Yes,
he is bruised, sprained, exhausted & pissed off, just like me.
--Buck: Should we camp here, or do you think he can make it
back to the ranch.
--Johnny: Sure, sure, he can make it, if we go slow & stop a lot.
I’ll ride double with you up on Rojo.
21(sound cue) Blues guitar slide & juice harp thwack. 



Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub OLN



Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Du Gamia, Du Fria


image from users.stlcc.edu


Du Gamia, Du Fria

“You love & lose & bleed best you can, to the extreme, hoping
that one day the world will read you like the poem you want
to be.”--Charlotte Eriksson.

I hear it now: Thou Ancient, Thou Free,
though I’ve never been, ever the absentee.
I think of prehistoric Svealand,
before Beowulf, even before the Viking,

before patriots an anthem could sing,
Remembering when the land was covered in ice.
I hear it now: Thou Ancient, Thou Free,
though I’ve never been, ever the absentee.

After the great lakes receded & hunters could
roam vast forests for red deer, moose, & firewood,
& petroglyphs appeared in caves of gneiss,
remembering when the land was covered in ice.

I hear it now: Thou Ancient, Thou Free,
though I’ve never been, ever the absentee.


Glenn Buttkus


Bjorn wants us to write to images of Swedish petroglyphs. I wrote a Sonnetina Rispetto.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Toad Tales


image from oilpaintingfactory.com


Toad Tales

“Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, which like the toad,
ugly & venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
--William Shakespeare.

Serious actors prefer being called a toad, rather than
a celebrity--which paints them as a popular success,
despite their obvious warts.

If you are a princess, or even just a wannabe,
kiss a ton of toads, for it is plausible
that your sweet lips could whelp a prince. 

When I was younger, I drove 
much too fast, reckless & furious, prompting 
my passengers to label my driving
as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at With Real Toads

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Pan's Promise


image from movies.com


Pan’s Promise

“Do you know why swallows build nests in the eaves of
houses? It is to listen to the stories.”--J.M. Barrie.

In Neverland lie the darkest of paths,
with no white pebbles, & no illumination--
peopled by warring factions; devoid
of any territory, fiefdom, or nation.

A lost island actually, beyond Britain’s shores,
where the more grim a situation, the wider
the grin on every wild boy.

Pan & Hook do make a strange pair,
I grant you, with one embracing hope
& the other despair;

And tis true that every boy in Pan’s posse
has never lost their sense of wonder--
which make them less than reliable
when their focus begins to wander.

There are grieving parents in London
who feel that Pan does nothing more than pander,
indulging the innocent imaginations of stolen children,
leaving their whereabouts but a thing to ponder.

But the boy who was once just Peter; now stuck in time,
cares naught for convention, ownership or parent’s rules;
nor does he worry a whit that there are some who
consider his fellowship with other boys to be naughty.

Just remember that the way is ever clear,
the directions exactly the same every time:
“Second star to the right,
and straight on till morning.”


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on With Real Toads

Extinguishing the Bern


image from imgur.com


Extinguishing the Bern

“Let us wage a moral & political war against the billionaires
& corporate heads whose policies & greed are destroying
the middle class in America.”--Bernie Sanders.

Today there is a new article in the New Yorker magazine:
Integrity disqualifies Sanders for the White House.
The electoral system has safeguards in place
preventing anyone who’s outspoken from becoming the President.

Integrity disqualifies Sanders for the White House--
this political reality conjures fear and anger,
nearly dashing all hope for a better tomorrow.

The electoral system has safeguards in place
excluding him from back room deals & cronyism
that may be a necessary requirement for election;

preventing anyone who’s outspoken from becoming President
because no Populist can raise the necessary billion dollars
while criticizing the blatant buying of the other candidates.



Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub MTB



Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Life Laureate


painting of leonard cohen from keelinggallery.com


Life Laureate

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense
of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
--Robert Frost.

Our poetry reflects
who we are & are not;
a clever mirror.

There are those who consider poetry as a gift
                 to a classroom,
                 to a cherished one,
                 to the unwashed,
                 to the uninformed,
                 to the world entire;      and there are Others
                           who interpret it as a
compulsion, addiction, fault, blessing, catharsis,
blood letting, regurgitation, love making, or epiphany--
                 the most direct way to capture
                          the minutia of life, splendid role-playing,
                                   both vicariously & personally; to become

the eyes of a hungry hawk,
the legs of a racing cheetah,
the claws of a bear,
the wisps of mist on a desolate moor,
the powerful arms of a mountain gorilla,
the pool of oil on the tarmac,
the brown recluse feasting on a fly,
the barb on a wire,
the smoking tires on a hot rod,
the smooth pebbles in a stream,
the swell of a titanic wave toppling a great ship,
the chill of awakening under a bridge--or in a doorway, park, or alley,   
the reward of holding your newborn for the first time,
the chaotic & terrifying dirge of heated battle,
the target for a bullet, fist, insult, or a kiss,
the participant in an adulterous affair,
the act of a criminal, priest, dog catcher, whore, or politician,
the shame of a cop looming pridefully over an unarmed dead black man,
the callous arrogance of a school yard or elected bully,
the inspiring sight of steel, glass & concrete as a skyscraper rises,
the gorgeous flow of a blue highway stretching across a high plateau,
the climax of coitus as two incomplete souls merge into one orgasm,
the crack of a wooden bat belting out a home run,
the sensuous revealing of a lover’s breasts,
the aching memory of parents lost, of children stolen;

                all this & so very much more because
the is no end, no down side to poetic insights,
               no detour or wash-out or stopping point
for our words that spill, emerge, & are whelped 
out of every orifice,
or the accompanying emotion
that colors & spices their journey.     

When life stirs my gut,
I must reach for the poet’s quill
and record everything.        



Glenn Buttkus




Monday, October 5, 2015

Dream Catcher


Art by Khalil Gibran at kennotes.blogspot.com


Dream Catcher

“Yesterday is but today’s memory, & tomorrow is
today’s dream.”--Khalil Gibran.

As we age, we lose some of the tenacious grasp we used to have
on each Day--embracing, gulping with gusto each moment we
inhabited. The New Agers preach carpe diem, & although I can dig
that premise/postulate--at times I find it difficult to separate hedonism
from the sheer enjoyment of my own madness.

My mortal tower of lego-decades teeters precariously, as its edges
erode & crumble. I feel like a strong wind could topple it, bringing
my short life crashing into the red dust of Now--leaving it to others
to remember it/me as I am tasked to recognize Home, that broad
horizon beyond the veil, where time has no meaning & where
tomorrow only has a shadow dominion; where infinity is touchable,
wearable & familiar.

It is comforting to be allowed some memory of Bardo, where after the
past-life review, if I decide to return to this emotional plane for another
go-round, then I can buckle down & construct a new plan for a new
life, set personal parameters, assign roles, tally the karma served
against the karma still owed--& begin in earnest to chose a region,
parents, race, social status, eye color, probable afflictions & necessary
pitfalls & stumbling blocks--understanding full well that my latest
lesson plan will be less than iron-clad once I have re-entered the
breach & launched the next reincarnation.  

Death whispers to me:
dare to be you--just carpe
punctum; with no regrets. 


Glenn Buttkus