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