Future Shock

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Future Shock

“Man has a limited biological capacity for change, & when

overwhelmed by it, they descend into future shock.”

--Alvin Toffler

Hard to believe it’s already 2216, & earth has become a plethora

of domed citadels. Climate change was real, & now only technology

allows us to cling to its surface. The seas have risen, land masses

have shrunk. Nations have withered. We have given in to what used

to be considered a dystopian vision, where great corporate conglom--

erates, no longer puppet masters, have stepped out of the shadows & 

have become Ruling Republics.

My family lives on the west coast in MICRO-APPLE, covering the 

western portion of Old America. The oil & natural gas barons have

taken over the heartland in BP-STANDARD. The east coast has

become the bastion of Military/Industrial complexes, called LIBERTY.

There is no President, no governors, just CEOs. What’s left of the

ancient government is made up of supervisors & sycophants who

wear black jumpsuits blazoned with patches from corporate sponsors.

I’m a climate engineer on my way back to Mars, where 50 million souls

toil in vast mines & farms, or are engaged in atmospheric change. It now 

rains on the red planet. We grow crops within the sprinkle of domed 

communities. A half dozen seas are filling up & spreading. We understand 

that our tiny galaxy, the Milky Way, is but a dust particle in a universe of 200

billion other galaxies. Beyond Mars, little Ceres has limited potential for

colonization; so it’s a way station, like all the moons have become. Jupiter

now has a 1,000 space stations orbiting it, & exploration of Saturn is on

the horizon. We have sent probes into the far reaches of the cosmos, but

sadly the data does not determine other life forms.

Man’s footprints now are

on planets once thought to be

unreachable; praise Allah.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub

I, Buttkus

image by shane shier

I, Buttkus

“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no

feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.”

--Erik Erickson.

I never liked the name, Buttkus, very much.

It was my stepfather’s, my third one, who

at my dying mother’s request adopted the

three kids. But I found if you wear a name

long enough, it becomes you & you become it.

In my family, it seemed, I was always 

          first, though not always a winner,

          first born & favored by Mom,

          first into the school system,

          first to get straight “A”s,

          first to go to college, returning three times,

          first to graduate, with three degrees,

          first to be in the armed service,

          first to pursue a career in the Arts--

I mean, why not?

I had very little mechanical aptitude, poor math skills 

         and the hoary sciences never beckoned to me. All

I had was a romance with words, a silver tongue,

         a vivid imagination & a passion for performance--

         which richly fueled my careers as actor,

                                                               writer,

                                                               teacher &

                                                               poet.        In the end it was

Civil Service, working for the Man,

that allowed me a thirty year career

as a teacher of the visually impaired.

Today, I sit like an aged restless tomcat,

       a Boomer two times three years into retirement.

              Hell,

            I grew up with a fiery Socialist for a grandfather,

                      who lovingly planted & sowed the perennial

                      seeds of liberalism within me, imprinted on

                      my soul. For a time

            I mingled with liberals at college, & it saddened me that

            I encountered so few in the world at large.

Observing our planet, our country, at present, waist-deep in the bloody

quagmire of the Bush-induced New Crusades--much too close

to the writings of Nostrodamus, plagued by ever-clinging racism,

bigotry, sexism, red-necked Republican ravings (wake up, Bubba,

you are too poor to be a real Republican), while watching a bilious

billionaire with a fourth grade vocabulary & a bully’s sensitivities,

pretending not to be influenced by corporate factions & Wall Street

sickens me (OMG, he is the damn poster boy for the 1% ruling class);

I find myself hatching nightmares of impending dystopian, fascist

scenarios, that too many of us, like lemming heading for the cliff,

fall in line, hopping on bandwagons & trains with too much momentum,

just seem to be hell-bent on materializing.

I am who I am,

not some other, just a crippled

bear in a paper cage. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB  

Chains

image from withelwyn.com 

Chains

“When a free man dies, he loses the pleasure of life--a slave

loses its pain. Death is the only freedom a slave knows--

that’s why he’s not afraid of it--Dalton Trumbo 

from SPARTACUS.

Many of us know who Spartacus was,

          or think we do, having seen the films,

          or read his name in history texts.

Yes, he lived, & was the primary leader

of a slave army during the Third Servile Wars

in 72 A.D.                            

                                         There is a rumor that he had been recruited

                                  in Thrace, in his teens, & had served in the

                         Roman Army, giving him knowledge of battle

         tactics & mindsets--that he deserted, was captured

& sentenced to living death as a slave in the

         mines of Libya. But as the fates would have it, he was

                          recruited yet again, for his ferocity, to be

                                   trained as a gladiator at a school in Capua.

                                           He excelled, & became a Champion

in the bloody sands of Roman arenas;

but like a tethered tiger, like a wing-clipped

eagle he dared to dream of freedom...

                             One bright dawn, he & his fellows erupted,

                             killed the guards, sacked & burned the school

                             & Spartacus escaped, taking 70 lethal gladiators

                             with him.

Their encampment was on Mt. Vesuvius, & within a week they were

joined by a thousand escaped slaves; word spread like a viral pandemic

--”Rise up, break your chains, join Spartacus & be free at last.” Spartacus

shared command with Crixius, the leader of the Gauls; berserk barbarians.

They were underestimated by Rome--We take five years to train a legion-

aire, & this rabble is made up of mere slaves.  Spartacus came down from

the mountain, & wiped out the army sent against him. The Slave Army 

swelled to 120,000 souls, complete with families; women & elders fought 

beside the young men. He moved north, defeating three more legions,

while heading for the Alps.

Crixius was a warrior, not a statesman, & he felt unstoppable 

                     after winning 4 battles, so he took the 30,000 Gauls, broke off

                            from the main army, & marched on Rome. Spartacus sadly

                                           headed north, toward the mountains. Soon

                                           word got to them that Crixius, a poor tactician,

                                           was caught between two legions & was 

                                           annihilated.

            Spartacus defeated three more armies sent

            to stop him, reaching the foothills of the Alps,

            but  he was not sure his rag-tag band could

            make it over the mountains. Mysteriously, he

turned his followers back to the south, 

fighting his way magnificently for the full 

length of Italy, bypassing Rome & stopping 

in the toe, arranging for ships that his people

could escape on.

The wealthiest Patrician, turned General, Marcus Crassus, pursued

them, pushing their backs to the sea. In late 73 A.D.. near the

headwaters of the Siller River, Spartacus was trapped between

three legions, & his army of freed slaves was finally beaten,

butchered by the tens of thousands, families clinging to each other

and to their hard fought freedom. The body of Spartacus was never 

found. 6,000 slaves were crucified along the Appian Way.

“I am Spartacus!”,

a thousand men cried to save

their hearts from breaking.

**************************************

Blood flowed, people died,
history repeating as
mockingbirds grow mute.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at <a href="http://dversepoets.com"> DVerse Poets Pub for Poetics

Brotherhood

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Brotherhood

“We don’t need holy wars. What we need is

tolerance & brotherhood--simple humanity.”

--Arien Specter

Dare we dream of perfect brotherhood

within a world strangled by greed?

If goals are checkmated by need,

are politician’s promises any damn good?

Our democracy perhaps should

be less other-directed, and take heed;

dare we dream of perfect brotherhood

within a world strangled by greed?

We are a nation of can’t--if only we could

actually govern from love, and not impede

those beautiful dreamers who want to lead

us out of chaos, to where equity is understood.

Dare we dream of perfect brotherhood?

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

A humane, political plea in the Rondel form.

The Waiting

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The Waiting

Your heart is full of fertile seeds, just waiting

to sprout.”--Morihei Ueshiba.

The bus station bench became too hard to tolerate,

the milling minions                     too loud,

                                                   too boisterous,

                                                   too pleased & joyous

as it seemed that everyone else met up

with a lover, a friend, or a family member,

                    as he sat solitary, arms folded, 

                    legs outstretched.

The great shiny but dusty Greyhounds

         rolled in & parked in neat diagonal rows,

                 their air brakes whooshing, their diesel exhaust

                        choking the air of the terminal garage, as

                  their chrome doors made that distinctive

          clunk folding back & swinging open wide,

allowing the anxious passengers egress.

                                              He watched the traveler’s faces intensely,

                                    witnessing happiness, despair, confusion, anger,

                              rancor & bliss--a swirling cavalcade of emotions, of

                      expressions, slack jaws, clenched teeth, furrowed

                 brows, & a plethora of mysterious situations. 

Too often these days,

working for a year now in the bustling

Kenworth factory,                  he ate alone,

                                                slept alone, &

                                            walked alone,

                   staring into the brightly lit windows

                   of other people’s lives, while listening

                   to other people’s music.

If he had been a writer,                     If he could paint, he would

he would have flooded                      have painted 6 foot high can-

pages with passionate                      vases with black & red & yellow

poetry, or started a novel.                 swaths of abstract sincerity, angst

                                                          & heartache.

Yonglin told him yesterday

that she would come up for

a visit tonight, after her shift at

the diner, in that converted railway

car on the edge of Diggsville, down

in the farm country, traveling up from

the Notch, the placid purity of rural

blessings into the stench & chaos of this

metropolis. They were engaged, but

only managed to see each once a month.

There was one more bus scheduled to arrive at midnight.

Nervously, he walked next door to the New Peking restaurant,

& gobbled down some house fried rice, laden with shrimp,

chicken, pork, eggs & green onions. Sipping hot green tea,

he traced hearts in the lovely grease left on the colorful

platter. He smiled as he read the message extracted from

his stale fortune cookie: Someone will make you happy

tonight.

Long distance romances

can be difficult to maintain;

but it can be done.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics

Death Descending

image from bbc.co.uk

Death Descending

“My father pulled into Pearl four days after the bombing

& there was no lull--everything was still burning.”

--John Lasseter.

I remember my grandfather saying,

“Hell, what is happiness?

It’s just a lull between chaos & pain.”  

As a kid, who could be lulled to sleep watching 

paint dry, I never understood.

The lull between the

bombs dropping is more fearsome

than the explosions.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Q2

Separation

image by Gabriella @dVerse Poets

Separation

“There ain’t no way you can hold onto someone that wants

to go--so just love what you got while you got it.”

--Kate DiCamillo.

I paused, stopping my battered pick up. The Chev V-8 idled

roughly, the glass packs popped and rumbled. The gray

overcast sky looked ominous--it was probably going to rain.

There it was, the crumbling stone bridge over Owl Creek, here

at the head of Oak Lane. Once I cross it, as I had a thousand

times, there will be no turning back, no return trip to the home

I built with my own hands, to my wife of twelve years, to my

three sons who were my joy--all of which who stood on our

front porch as I pushed past them carrying a battered leather

suitcase & a moldy duffel bag.

My Betty was stone-faced, her cheeks still wet with tears. Luke

& Carl were little men, standing silently, staring at the boards

beneath them--but Buddy was only five. He reached out to me

as his mother held his tiny shoulders, blubbering, “Daddy, don’t

go, please, we still love you.”

I turned the red truck back toward the house, as my own tears

clouded my eyes.

If a man lets his

pride and anger overrule

his heart, all is lost.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub