Ginsberg Slept Here

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Ginsberg Slept Here

“I love sleep--for my life tends to fall apart when

I’m awake.”--Ernest Hemingway.

Sleep can be a waking state as well, whereby

people vote as if blind.

Marlowe referred to the Big Sleep induced by a

.45 or blackjack.

As a youth, sleep could be pushed aside, in 

favor of romance or play.

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

As I age,

sleep comes in fits and

groggy spurts.

Sleep used to 

include dreams every night;

presently,

dreams click through

sleep like changing channels

all night long.

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

If we truly are

powerful beings, does sleep

recharge us, or just

supply us recreation

and fantasy fulfillment?

There are several

theories about whose dream we are

part of or master

of, and sleep is supposed to

sort it all out; smile.

I have come to love naps,

for they fill in the gaps

in my fitful sleep.

Glenn Buttkus

american sentences, collom lunes, tanka & haiku.

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB  

Twins Within

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Twins Within

“We are all performing a comedy within, as

one self always mocks the other.”

--George Moore.

                            Born in the

                      middle of June, with

                 six moons in Gemini, I have

               enjoyed the moniker of earthly

            intellectual for over seven decades. 

               I never really paid much credible

                   attention to birthstones, since

                      I rarely wear any jewelry.

I discovered that both

     pearl and moonstone can 

         be representative of June, but

             the real surprise was that the most

         preferred June birthstone is a

     very rare color-changing variety

of the mineral chrysoberyl

called Alexandrite.

                             The gem is emerald green in

                        sunlight, and changes from ruby

                to purple-red in candlelight--reflecting

            the twins aspect of all Gemini. 

This is a very valuable gem, and can be quite

expensive--from 15 to 30 thousand per stone.

It was discovered in Russia, in the Ural Mountains,

in 1830, and was named after the Czar. It is now

found as well in Brazil and East Africa. Today,

the Russians, bless their greedy hearts, have

developed a synthetic form of Alexandrite for 

those of us with more modest means.

How wonderful that

Alexandrite reflects my

duality; cool.          

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Beyond the Bland

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Beyond the Bland

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my

conversation.”--George Bernard Shaw.

In

the early 90’s,

as Clinton

tom-catted,

the first major

pop group sensation

out of England

was the Spice Girls--

Mel B.,

Emma,

Melanie,

Geri, and

Victoria.

They danced

more than

they rocked.

Victoria

was dubbed

the “Posh Spice”.

I loved

“Spice Up Your Life”.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Q44  

Blackthorne--Scene 69

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Blackthorne

Cinemagenic Sixty-Nine

True Love

“True love is like ghosts, which everyone

talks about, but few have seen.”

--Francois de La Rochfoucauld.

1(low wide shot) near the ground; prairie vast,

pocked with hillocks & arroyos--camera moves 

toward the horizon, gathering speed; soon just

skimming the sagebrush.

2(sound cue) coronet & banjo--punctuated by 

loud bleats on saxophones.

3(reduce to medium wide shot)  suddenly, out of

the sage a large pair of brown birds bursts into

flight--prairie buzzards.

4(drone shot) tracking the buzzards, just above

them, as they gain altitude, and the ground 

below slides by.

5(sound cue) harp strumming and great wings 

flapping.

6(drone takes the point of view of birds) as the

field of slain buffalo comes into view. and the

lens descends to the fallen bison furthest from

the young hunter. 

7(sound cue) guitar & harmonica.

8(medium wide shot) Buck stood up & walked

toward the two buffalo, the graying black cow

standing next to the fallen albino bull. He halted

about twenty feet from their yellow horns.

9(close-up) the patriarch still breathing, but not

moving, still watching Buck.

10(sound cue) three cellos.

11(two-shot) the cow behaved like a tame Jersey,

swishing its tail, chewing its cud.

12(medium close-up) She watched Buck with

calm brown eyes that recognized him, somehow

understanding who he was, the singer of her

death song. She had already faced & moved 

beyond her fear, leaving only a black stillness.

13( close-up) Buck: Get the hell out of here !

Leave ! I have killed enough of your family !

I don’t need your pelt ! I grant you life !

14(three-shot) They both stared at him with the 

bemused patience of the aged. He drew his 

pistol & fired into the air. We see the buzzards

fly off a few feet & stop to witness. The black

cow did not even flinch.

15(medium close-up) Buck: Goddamn it--didn’t

you hear me ? Go !! Join your baby & the others!

16(sound cue) French horns & snare drums.

17(three-shot) He fired the Thunderer twice, 

kicking up gravel near her hooves. She did

flinch but would not run.

18(close-up) Buck’s anxious eyes, then her calm

ones.

19(medium close-up) Alright--so you have run far

enough? You faithful tired wonderful bitch--join

your husband.

20(overhead drone shot) He raised the Sharps,

point blank, and shot her in the head--blood

spewing for several feet. It broke her neck, and

slapped her to the ground.

21(sound cue) cello & piano.

22( tight three-shot) They lie together, two ancient

bison, their true love shot away. Buck sank to his 

knees, weeping, like he had when his mother died.

He sat there for an hour, until the great snow bull

died--taking one last rasping breath, his huge body

convulsing in a last shudder. Death was a spirit

stallion appearing suddenly. The slain pair rose to

their feet & galloped after the swirling darkness.

Buck rose slowly, his face now an expressionless

mask. He propped up the shiny cold-barreled 

Sharps at the albino’s head, unbuckled his sawed 

off and finished killing the others. He would have to 

set up a camp, then begin the skinning of the pelts.

He would need to build a travois to haul them all on.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

The Why Chronicles

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The Why Chronicles

“Judge a man by his questions rather than

his answers.”--Voltaire.

Why must we toil

in ignorance, perhaps

even suffering

in the Now,

when our Higher Self

has always had a road map

and all the answers we seek?

How many of us,

when the time comes,

will face death fearlessly,

with grace and dignity?

Are there cosmic limits

on the number

of spirit guides we can possess?

If most of matter

is nothing more than empty space,

when did we decide

it had substance,

and how did we implement it?

If dogs and cats do go

to heaven, how about

mosquitos, spiders, & rattlesnakes?

When someone decides

to ride out a powerful hurricane,

does it require courage,

ignorance or a death wish?

Within the confines

of a lifetime, how

many versions of us

simultaneously co-exists

in parallel & overlapping dimensions?

Will the darker and ignorant side

of Trump’s nature ever be considered

substantial enough to implode

his rogue presidency,

or must we continue

to be force-fed daily

humiliation and outrage

for the next three years?

When will any police officer

ever be actually held accountable

for the killing of unarmed black men?

Are there more homeless people

today in this country than ever before,

or are we just more aware of them?

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub

Malaise

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Malaise

“The strongest people are those who win

battles we know nothing about.”

--Robin Williams.

For over twenty years

I have been a host

to a vicious pack

of autoimmune demons,

who like hyenas

circle around me, much

more than angry pairs

of eyes in the darkness

just beyond the firelight.

Mostly, emboldened

my medical team,

I can exert minimal

mastery over their

voracious nature--

but sometimes

one or more of them

make it to me,

chewing me up a bit--

nothing life-threatening,

but quite debilitating.

So

the broken news

is that my Western

saga will not appear

today--the creative energy

required to produce

another stirring episode

cannot be conjured.

                 cajoled, or

                 brought to the surface.

This latest tussle

with the pack

will pass,

as it always does,

but BLACKTHORNE.

the meat of it,

is now on the back-back

burner--placed gently

on a slow.

very slow

simmer.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets, Pub OLN

Dragon's Teeth

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Dragon’s Teeth

“Any sufficiently advanced technology can be

indistinguishable from magic.”

--Arthur C, Clarke

Born in 1898.

my grandfather loved

to tell stories about his magical

youth, like when he was a a kid

delivering watermelons in a horse-drawn

wagon in Kettle Falls, and his team

was frightened by the sight of 

one of the first horseless

carriages, belching 

black smoke.

Too young to be conscripted

      in WWI, still he read his Jules Verne,

           and saw with his own eyes some of the 

      first planes, tanks, and machine guns.

His best friend had been a sniper

for the Army in France. He returned

with burned lungs from the gas attacks

in the trenches, and a tortured soul

haunted by battle fatigue until he died

of lung cancer at 29.

Turned out that my 

    grandfather was to old

         to be conscripted in WWII;

             was married with three kids, still

         he witnessed, as he put it,

    “the advance of technology 

that was ushered in by the Allied 

need to achieve.victory”, the by God 

dawn of the Atomic Age, the death of

millions.

I once worked with two WWII veterans, both had 

been prisoners of war. One was working on a POW 

farm in Austria. Suddenly they heard a terrible roar;

looking up they saw a plane without a prop falling

out of the sky--but at the last moment it leveled off

and shot back up into the clouds--it was one of the

first German jet fighters. It took several days of

discussion among the prisoners to figure it out.

The other veteran had been in a POW camp on

the mainland of Japan. Late in the war, they were

awakened by a huge earthquake; running outside, 

looking across the bay, they saw the ominous 

rising of a mushroom cloud as Fat Man devastated

Nagasaki.

We boomers have seen

our own technological

magical marvels.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub