At American Lake

image from va.gov.com

 At American Lake

“America without its veterans, is like God

without his angels .”--Dwight D. Eisenhower 
ower.

I never had to ask for a pay hike the 27 years

I worked at the American Lake Veteran’s Hospital,

near Tacoma. Luckily we were on the GS system

which promoted in exacting increments relative to

your time employed.

The building I worked in was in the quiet southern

corner of the compound adjacent to the lake. My

office window had a grand view of the lake, which

helped to counter balance all the bureaucratic bull

shit one puts up with as a civil servant. The parking

lot was a full block from our building, so I had a

modest hike every morning and evening; often in a

driving rain.

We were surrounded by towering Douglas Fir trees,

many of which toppled in wind storms. We were

adjacent to the fence for North Ft. Lewis; deer and

raccoons would visit us from there.

A nesting pair of

eagles could be seen outside

my window; such joy.

Glenn Buttkus

Haibun

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Verbiage Veritas

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 Verbiage Veritas

“Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an action

before it is a place.”--Martha Graham.

Verbing can be exhausting.

I have no trouble jamming or troubling,

but hurricaning and lightninging

is much harder than

thundering and storming.

I can’t be running these days,

so I spend time experting

about film & poetics.

In this media crazy age,

less folks enjoy jawing,

preferring jousting 

with their thumbs.

I’m informed that I must

be emoting not emotioning,

and romancing

rather than romanticing.

One drives a car,

because caring

morphs into affectioning.

I could be punching and kicking

because knuckling and toeing

become murky, and fisting

is something sexual.

I like gardening, but radishing

                                carroting,

                                onioning,

                                meloning,

                                peaing,

                                corning,

                                wheating,

                                mustarding,

are all feral verbs that snag 

on your tongue and sting your ears.

I can be standing and balancing

but erecting strikes a different tone.

I am a knowing person,

but perhaps not knowledgable,

often annoying

but never jocularing,

or ponderousing.

Friending is now more acceptable,

but enemying or adversarying

is harder to pull off.

Meanwhile,

I will continue poeting

on my merry way. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub MTB

Jesus would have loved Wonder Bread

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 Jesus would have loved Wonder Bread

“Whenever a person goes into a delicatessen and

orders pastrami on white bread, somewhere a

Jew dies.”--Milton Berle.

All my life,

I have been grateful

to the Earl of Sandwich

for providing me

with the perfect meal.

I once made a sandwich

out of cold mashed potatoes

and peanut butter.

My mother baked bread with white flour.

My grandmother baked bread

with whole wheat flour,

which still has

the fiber and nutrients

in it.

I guess white flour

is what’s left

after most of the fiber

has been pressed

and processed out of it.

As a dumb kid,

I preferred my mother’s white bread

to my grandmother’s heavily grained bread.

At school, compounding my stupidity,

I would trade my homemade bread sandwiches

for anything on Wonder Bread.

In college, I was introduced 

to the unleavened

breads of the Middle East, 

flat and yeastless.

I liked it. 

Somehow I felt more

spiritual

while munching on it.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

The Fag Duplicity

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The Fag Duplicity

“You’re a faggot--case closed.”--Judge Judy.

When

I was young,

it seemed

like everybody

smoked.

Cigarettes

were called

fags.

Fags

were called

queers.

So

bumming a fag

in 1958 got you

a Lucky Strike,

not

RuPaul.

I never smoked,

but

Ginsberg

knew

the difference

I guess

while he was

howling.

Glenn Buttkus

Quadrille

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Blackthorne Episode 120

image from westernpulpcovers.com 

Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 120

Crescendo

“Death has always been the crescendo

of life,”--Rajneesh.

1(sound cue) soft harmonica.

2(medium wide shot) Everyone standing, except

for the dead.

3(medium close-up) Sheriff Hop: Damn...under the

circumstances, Buck, I’m going to have to lock you

and the Indian up.

4(two-shot) Buck’s expression stoic, but the edges of

panic in the Indian’s gaze.

5(close up) Joe Hop: This is for your own protection as

much as anything else. This will be cleared up in a

flick, couple of days at most. If anybody changes their

story, we’ll see what they say in court. We have at 

least four impartial witnesses, and more that I don’t 

know about yet . The circuit judge comes through

next week. If anybody lies under oath, they’ll be

state prison bound.

6(sound cue) piano over shuffling feet and coughing

7(medium close up) Cash Bronson, his voice tight:

That seems fair to me, Joe--but what about the 

damage to my place?

8(two-shot) Buck, through clenched teeth: What

about the damage to my place! eye to eye with

Bronson. Cash’s mouth turned mean, and he started

to reply, when
9(cut to new two-shot) Paulie, standing behind Thor

said: Goddamn rights--you lock those lunatics up. It’s

not safe on the streets with their kind on the loose.

10(another new two-shot) Buck: How’s Johnny?

Henry Wallace: He’s still alive.

11(close-up) Hop: We will establish who will pay for

what damages after we determine fault in court.

12(two-shot) Indian: I am not going to jail.

Hop: It isn’t prison--it’s just my pokey across the

street. We’re talking two or three days, and hell,

you’ll eat better than you have in years.

13(sound cue) Native American seed rattle and

castanets.

14(tight close up) Indian: I am not going to jail.

I have done nothing wrong.

15(two-shot) Buck: I am the one who has done

something wrong, compadre. He handed his 

gunbelt to Joe Hop. I was the one who didn’t wait

for the Sheriff. The blame belongs to me. We will

go with Joe together, And soon you will be free,

because we are innocent of starting this ruckus.

16(sound cue) loud seed rattle.

Indian: Ramos shot Mateo. We killed Ramos. It

had to be done. It was the honorable thing to do.

17(close-up) His eyes were frightened, a deer

discovered at night in your vegetable garden.

18(flashback) the Indian had been a scout for the

Army. He got drunk and tomahawked a Cavalry

sergeant. They put him in the stockade for four

months. If the sergeant had not survived, they would

have hanged him. The fear of those black steel bars

was still in him.

Sheriff: Give me your carbine

19(medium wide shot) The Indian tossed the rifle into

Hop’s face, swiftly drew his boning knife and leaped

forward. Hop stumbled back against Wallace. The

deputy drew his pistol, but couldn’t fire, because his 

gun arm was slashed open as the Indian bolted for the 

door. Cash Bronson pulled his nickel-plated Smith and

Wesson and shot the Indian twice in the back. The

savage drew his old Navy Colt as he toppled forward,

and the gun discharged as he hit the boards. A hot

Spencer and pump shotgun opened up on him. Buck,

Hop, Wallace, Billy and Bronson all hit the deck. The

Indian’s shot went wild, and broke fresh glass from the

saloon windows.
20(slow motion one-shot) He was on his knees in the

doorway, the swinging doors half open, swaying in his

death dance, silently humming his death song. As the

big rifles from the back of the room roared, his chest

exploded from the hail of lead. Buck reached for the

Thunderer, but Hop kept it out of his reach. The Indian’s

body rose up from the bullet’s onslaught, and settled

slowly, lightly, an empty vessel lying in a pool of blood,

his life shot away.

   The terrible clatter of thunderous gun fire faded, and

the five men on the floor looked at each other.

 Cash: He wasn’t very smart

21(sound cue) Indian branch flute.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poets Pub OLN

Commedia dell'politicus

 

image from timelife.com

Commedia dell’politicus

“Trump is Trump. Some people find him hilarious.

I don’t, but there’s never been a dull moment

since he took office.”--Martin Short.

There’s only one clown

who comes to mind,

a slimy evil sonofabitch,

who makes King’s Pennywise

seem like an amateur,

smirking while munching

Ronald’s Big Mac

as more than 170,000

people perished;

with his silly pumpkin make-up,

and the stupid white mask

around his little red eyes,

his poorly dyed and combed-over

sprayed-on Jerry Lee Lewis coiffe,

his trembling puckered porky lips

midst a pair of bull dog jowls,

his red tie so long he trips on it

and uses it for a napkin, wiping

off chicken grease and secret sauce,

his thousand dollar suits that were

made in China, that hang on his

rotundness like a blue tarp,

with his tiny hands gesturing and

pointing, flailing like clipped pigeon wings,

his fifth grade oratory skills,

coupled with his third grade vocabulary,

his vulgarity and gutterspeak insults

that would make George Carlin blush,

his illusions of grandeur, actually believing

he is the Chosen one, a deity, even though

he’s an atheist, nihilist, a fraud, a failure,

a perpetual lying machine, 

a forlorn future footnote in history,

a simpleton, a moron, who has obviously

made a deal with the devil at the crossroads,

and now his term is up, and he is terrified

of facing up to his demonic obligations,

all those broken laws,

all those prison sex nightmares,

all that angry horde of women he’s raped & wronged,

all those teeth-clenching folks

that he has defrauded,

                   cheated,

                   conned,

                   hoodwinked,

                   robbed,

                   deceived &

                   duped;

finding himself to be the rodeo clown

whose stumbled and must now

face the horns;

and most of all

he must face the millions

of families who have had loved ones

become infected, and who died

needlessly on his watch,

from his gross neglect,

ignorance and greed.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at d'Verse Poets Pub