Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Gifts Within


image from wallup.net


Gifts Within

“Youth is a gift of nature, but age is a work
of art.” --Stanislaw Jerzey Lec.

Most agree
that the breath of life
is a divine spark--a gift
from some/thing/one greater
than we are, yet we’re integral to.

Since I believe in past lives, I think
my entity, during the life between
lives, meticulously gifts the next
me with knowledge, wisdom,
insights & obstacles.

For me, the most difficult thing about gifting is
to demonstrate grace & gratitude as a recipient.
Old souls are hip to the Bardoian programming
when the Higher Self gifts the newest Us with
specific obstacles, disabilities, & tragedies, then
later we are taught to own, to thank the divers
difficulties & diseases we have created. We must
be aware that during each lifetime we are still in
lesson--and must struggle to keep moving forward
and to keep learning.   

Each life provides us
more data, more pieces of the

truth--pay attention.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub  

Monday, May 29, 2017

Muy Bonita Mamacita


image from pinterest.com


Muy Bonita Mamacita

“I did not have a mother; I had a Mama.”
--Al Green.

Fifty years ago, as some of you know, my mother 
died. She was young--I was younger. “39”, I
thought in 1966, “A good life”--as I was drafted right
out of college, heading off to boot camp while Viet
Nam raged south-southeast, & I had to wonder if
I would survive meeting Charlie, would I live to see
39 myself? There was nothing to do but lock and
load, roll the bones, close my eyes, swallow my fear
& leap blindly into the quagmire. I did make it to my
39th orbit around the planet, but the whole year was
a bumpy ride.

My Mama was an earth mother, and it seems that
sister Nature loved her so much, she was called up
to join the fraternity early on. She was then in the
earth, of the earth, beyond the earth--becoming
dust, both in the air & among the stars, a fading
photograph, a specter without a face, without a
voice, evaporating like magnificent cosmic mist
mid-morning on the magenta moors.

As I age, I must
say--my mother’s face becomes

clearer every day.  

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Aquaphobia


image from deviantart.com


Aquaphobia

“All water has a perfect memory, and is
forever trying to get back to where it was.”
--Toni Morrison.

Water demons have haunted me for all my
life--fearful of my own urine, even
afraid of the rain, refusing to ever cry,
when hurt, or sad about sweat when given
hugs--screaming through every bath, wanting to fly
away like Poe’s macabre crazy raven,
to escape, to disappear, to seek
refuge, to seek solutions not for the meek.

So my quest brought me here atop this dune,
a hundred miles from anything that is wet,
staring blind at the sun, freezing ‘neath the moon,
until my husk is brittle, devoid of all sweat--
hanging on until the peak of high noon,
allowing no one else to pay my debt,
when gladly I exhale my very last breath

into the hot sand mouth of my friend death.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

Monday, May 22, 2017

Deck Decibels


image from asf.alaska.edu


Deck Decibels

“My body is an ugly masterpiece that lives
off the beauty of sound.”--Chad Sugg.

Residing near
the vast
inland sea of
Puget Sound,

my deck-time
is serenaded
by Soundgarden,

as my old tom
sounds-off to
the neighbor’s cat.

Rarely I beat
my wife soundly
at pinochle.

My grandchildren’s
laughter is the sound

I Iove the most.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Blackthorne--Scene 63


image from pinterest.com


Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Sixty-Three

Banter

“If you find it hard to laugh at your self, I would
be happy to do it for you.”--Anonymous.

1(two-shot) Johnny, over Buck’s shoulder, calm
eyes, after three beats of silence: I am no longer
angry at you, my Buck.
2(medium wide shot) Johnny opened a pine tool
box by the stall.
3(close-up) He snagged a rusted tin of thick yellow-
brown ointment--homemade--probably an Indian
concoction. He gently lifted Bob’s swollen knee,
4(sound cue) Bob’s neigh over snare drum brushing.
5( medium two-shot) Johnny: Easy, young man--this
will make you feel better. He glanced up at Buck--
The anger still simmers.
6(wide shot) Buck threw his vaquero saddle over a 
wooden sawhorse.
7(sound cue) horses nickering, their steel horse shoes 
rapping against the puncheon flooring over a guitar
chord.
8(close-up) Buck: Your anger has a companion in my 
own. Shit, I doubt that Sheriff Hop can help much--this
incident happened on open range. 
9(two-shot) over Buck’s shoulder--Johnny: I do not
completely trust Joe Hop. Buck nodded his head in
agreement.
10(close-up) Johnny: Damn truth is, you probably
saved my life today--bit a flame has erupted in my
chest. I no longer can abide any Bronson pissing on
my pow-wow.
11(sound cue) piano & banjo.
12(two-shot) Buck kneeled down alongside the Eagle,
watching him massage the pungent ointment into Bob’s
swollen leg.
Buck: Christ, that stuff smells like axle grease, bear fat
and cow crap
Johnny: Plus assorted herbs, rose hips, bee pollen, 
turtle spit, and prairie dog piss.
They both laughed.
13(tighter two-shot) over Johnny’s shoulder--Buck, his 
smile fading: I think Thor would have killed one of us, 
& I was not as prepared to die as you were.
14(sound cue) Indian seed rattle & harmonica huffing.
15(close-up) Johnny: We were shoulder to shoulder;
brothers. I could hear my death song on the wind.
16(close-up) Buck: You are my family now--another
reason to rein you in.
17(close-up) Johnny, eyes on his task: Life is not
always a Spring morning. In a blink, it can become
an irritated sow grizzly & can chew your guts out.
18(sound cue) snare drum & saxophone.
19(two-shot) over the Eagle’s shoulder; Buck: Too
true, but hey, picking fleas off a mother grizz’ with
cubs should be avoided.
Johnny snorted in glee, Buck stood up, pushing his
sleeves back, placing his hands on his hips: Alright,
if you think that jughead mule of yours will pull traces
with one of the mustang mares, we will head into
town tomorrow.
Johnny: Good plan. Who knows, if you’re lucky you
might even bump into Miss Salina.

Buck, smiling again: Behave yourself, my brother.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Elk Fishing



image from pinterest.com


Elk Fishing

“There is no abstract art. You must always 
start with something.”--Pablo Picasso.

Woke up curious four times
this morning, 
before I escaped my dreams,
or I think I did, as I gleefully
partook the rites of urination.

I brewed up some Earl Gray.
spiked with toenail jam,
stirred with an owl feather;
sipping it beneath my deck,
squatting on pancakes, listening
to the argument between rain
and my fiberglass roofing, sounding
like thousands of angels using the
deck cover as a toilet, filling the wetness
with the smell of Mandarin oranges,
allowing my mind’s crust to
wander & wonder--

Does yellow snow taste like 
    it looks? Does a metal fan blade
         ever get indigestion? Are the creaking 
    hinges on my screen door proof
of a secret hinge code? What

                             does liberty smell like? Now 
                      that watches can talk, do they
              switch languages as you travel? 
          Does smog have the texture
of elm bark? Can thick fog sing
          credible rap lyrics? When a heart
               breaks alone in the forest,
                         can the ants hear it? Yes.
                                acid rain enables rust, but
                                can it tan skin? 

                                When does
                              anger look pink?
                           Do cold--blooded crea-
                       tures like to drink antifreeze?
                    What specific odor is associated
              with genius intellect? If you stroke a car’s
                     hood, does it become aroused? 
                          Does insanity have a 
                                theme song?

Does jealousy smell like fried
green tomatoes? Is stupidity
always dark brown & sticky?
Is a check legal if it is filled
out in frog’s blood? If you
habitually wear your sunglasses
on your posterior, do they finally
become aspects?

Hope sings anthems, and
red sells cars, but glass hammers
fear nails of all sorts.
                     

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub  

Thursday, May 11, 2017

List Me Lovely


image from pinterest.com


List Me Lovely

“Lists today are a way of trying to get through the
day, because we’re losing our sense of time.”
--David Viscott.

My retirement began 
               in joy,
               in perpetual motion,
               in parcels,
               in June 2010,
               in my 66th year,
        within the conclusion of my bondage,
but never incognito.

For some inexplicable reason,
I was given several years at the
tail-end of my teaching career
        to learn to let go,
        to inaugurate serious retirement planning           
        to investigate digital photography,
        to learn more about personal computers,
        to give up my personal office space,
        to sit in the large noisy typing pool,
        to become anonymous,
                          calm,
                          tiny, nearly
                          invisible.

Yes, my compassionate superiors
actually allowed me to ease into
                          my transition,
                          my rebirth,
                          my adventure,
                          my stress-free zone. 
                          my dreams,
                                fantasies,
                                hopes,
                                plans, paths, & pursuits.

Of course in an imperfect world
one never really foresees, or allows for,
                                           or expects
poor health,
    death in the family,   
          death among your peers, accidents,
                     or on the flip side,
                         the magical birth of eight
                      grand children, and
                  the loss of your free
               time, contrasted with   
         the traumatic death of pets,
         political chaos,
         loss of portfolio revenue,
automobile & home repairs,
additional obesity, and
a painful plethora of new
symptoms & pains.

For me, lists form in
thin air; the best way to stave

off poor memory.             


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Dirty Deeds


image from motherearthnews.com


Dirty Deeds

“My music has roots which I dug up from my
childhood--musical roots buried in the darkest
soil.”--Ray Charles.

Within the grand & colossal concrete
     canyons, we use window boxes and
        balcony pots to place commercial hardware
     store top soil so that we can grow things;
you know like carrots,
                       marijuana,
                       baby banzai,
                       cherry tomatoes,
                       chives & herbs,
                       exotic ferns,
                       colorful flowers,
                       & pigmy corn.

Of course, not everyone enjoys
gardening, accepting that awesome
responsibility of tending something
alive & dependent--guess it just
depends on where & when one
was introduced to it.

I love coming across reclaimed
empty lots, or grimy alleys where
people had erected raised beds 
of imported dirt, places where 
city slickers could raise beautiful
& delicious crops.

One summer I romanced a woman I had met in
college, who lived off the grid, with no indoor
plumbing, no electricity, bathing in a nearby
creek, heating with a converted 50 gallon oil
barrel--in a rough-hewn cabin, with a loft for
a bedroom under a skylight. She was a talented
jewelry maker, & she went to town & craft fairs
to sell her wares.

She had two green thumbs--could grow anything
it seemed. She’d recruit me to work with her in a
half-acre garden, trading “sex for labor” as she was
fond of saying. She placed large blue plastic rain
barrels under the down spouts

                             After several grueling hours of
                      working in the dirt with my bare
                  hands, I experienced a kind of
           transformation, an epiphany, whereby
        somehow I connected with the soil,
became one with the earth as the
moist black dirt caked my nostrils
& clothes & boots-- but as much as
I enjoyed all that,  I think I was there
more for the woman than for the
dusty siren song of the soil, or the
lure of the fecund land.

The earth is mother
for each of us, a pity
we disrespect her.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Monday, May 8, 2017

Sans Echolalia


painting by Talbot Hughes.


Sans Echolalia

“Music is the harmonious voice of creation, an
echo of the invisible world.”--Giuseppe Mazzini.

It’s unnerving
to stand 
on the lip
of a chasm,
  
                        and shout
                     the name of
               your beloved,
                     or God,
                     or fuck--

and no echo
returns,
just
terrible silence--

                      like dropping
                      a rock into
                      a sink-hole

and you never
hear it

hit the bottom. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Q44

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Blackthorne--Scene 62


image from pinterest.com


Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Sixty-Two

Palaver

“We talk a lot about hope. and the main message
is that we are more powerful together.”
--Victoria Osteen.

1(cut to an overhead drone shot) the two men & the 
dog squatting by their fire--their horses hobbled 
behind them, as the morning sun rises higher into
the flat blue sky.
2(two-shot) Johnny over Buck’s shoulder, chewing his
bacon & beans: My heart is heavy. It was not an easy
thing to watch them drag Chatawa off like that.
Buck: Uh-huh--damned hard.
3(close-up) Johnny: You know there will be no love for
him on the Bronson ranch--just cruelty.
4(two-shot) Buck over the Eagle’s shoulder: Christ. if
only love could be the solution for everything--but there
seems to be so little of it to go around.
Johnny: Do you think we will ever see that grande 
stallion again?
5(close-up) Buck: I’m going to try and buy him.
6(sound cue) piano & harmonica.
7(two-shot) Johnny, over Buck’s shoulder: You might as
well piss on the stars to put them out.
Buck: Still, I will try.
8(medium close-up) Johnny : I think Chatawa will never
give in to the whip & the spurs. They will never break his
beautiful spirit. They’ll have to kill him.
9(close-up) Buck: It could be true that one day we will 
have to let go of our dreams for him--but his story is not
over yet.
10(medium wide shot) the men finished their breakfast,
saying nothing more to each other.
11(smooth jump cuts) They wiped down their pans and
cups, packing up their gear. They tied the mares together
and brought them out of the willow corral. Johnny’s white
stallion was still limping, but he saddled him just to let
him know he was still part of the plan. Then the Indian
mounted up behind Buck on the red stallion, They 
started off at a fast walk.
12(tracking shots) The tall roan stud had no difficulty
carrying the two riders. The pack mule & the pair of 
mares were lashed together, & Johnny held the tether.
13(sound cue) The metal pans & gear rattled on the 
gray mule, over saxophone & banjo.
14(stationary overhead crane shot) they rode from left 
to right across the frame, with the white stallion limping 
along behind them, the reins wrapped loosely around 
the saddle horn. the wide stirrups slapping his alabaster
sides as he struggled to keep up.
15(cut to medium wide shot) as they walked slowly down 
into Antlered Buck ranch late in the afternoon.
16(smooth jump cuts) Cheewa was scampering around
chasing a cat, a rabbit, & some chickens--the entourage
made its way to the the big barn--the mares were still a
bit wild eyed, & their flanks were wet from the heat.
17(two shot) the men’s exhausted faces.
18(sound cue) banjo & harmonica.
19(smooth series of cuts & fades) Johnny opened the tall
barn doors, and he walked his horse & the mule inside;
Bob was limping badly.  Outside, Buck put the mares into 
an adjacent corral already holding two dozen other horses.
He dismounted & walked his roan into the barn. Johnny 
was placing his silver saddle on a saw horse. Buck walked his
horse over to a stall, & began unsaddling it. 
20(sound cue) harmonica riffs.
21( two shot ) Buck: Well you haven’t said a word to me
for several hours. Now would be the time to unpack your
thoughts. Johnny’s face was calm, but he remained silent.
Buck: Compadres talk.

22(sound cue) Indian branch flute.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN