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Obloquies
“A truth that’s told with bad intent
beats all the lies you could invent.”
--William Blake.
Something
I can’t abide
is lying.
I believe
that any lie
is a breach of trust.
It’s sad enough
when I’m lied to,
with the lie being
a monody,
but when
it’s told
to the entire nation
or the world,
it just becomes
criminal.
Glenn Buttkus
Quadrille
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
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Blackthorne
Cinemagenic 126
Adagio
“People who have never had a broken heart will
never understand dead roses, sun breaks, truffles
Albinoni’s Adagio, neat brandy, the moon or drizzle.”
--Wendy Harmer
1(sound cue) piano and harmonica.
2(medium close-up) Bronson: his head down, his big
hands on his hips--Goddamn it, Mr. Buck, I swear, you
are a magnet for death. You are more trouble than my
town has ever seen.
3(close-up) Buck: Your town?
4(three-shot) Bronson: Blackthorne is going to take a
long spell to recover from a case of you.
Wallace: Truth be told, Cash, you’re the locust, not
him. He was born here. He belongs.
5(medium wide shot) Bronson stepped in closer to the
Sheriff: Where you hit, Joe?
Hop: In the pride.
Bronson: I doubt anyone ever died from that.
He said this without emotion, then turned on his heel,
and pushed his way back out to the street.
Hart, the blacksmith: We got to get you over to Doc’s.,
helping the sheriff to stand up.
Hop: NO! jerking himself free from the burly blacksmith.
He shook his head, squinting, swallowing hard.
No, you bring the sawbones to me. No one is going to
get to my prisoner--no one.
Wallace: Sorry, we can’t do that, Joe. You know how
busy he is right now. Christ, he’s got patients lying on
his damn stairs.
6(two-shot) Salina had both arms around Buck.
7(close-up) From her hand bag she pulled out a snub-
nosed Derringer, and stuffed it into the back of his pants.
For Buck the cold steel felt comforting.
8(medium close-up) Hop: Then someone let him know
to come over when he can. He waved his pistol at the
group in the doorway. Clear the hell out of here, all
of you!
9(close-up) Salina: I’ve got disinfectant and some
bandages in my bag, plunking the bag onto Hop’s
desk, and starting to rummage through it.
10(sound cue) loud gunshot.
11(cut to medium wide shot) Hop fired his Colt
into the ceiling, and the bullet ricocheted off a
cell steel bar.
Hop: Henry, you and Salina stay, and everyone
else get the hell out of here!
People left quickly. Hart lingered for a moment
at the door, then closed it. Silence was sweet.
Buck sat down on a chair next to the pot-bellied
stove. He picked up two hunks of firewood from
an adjacent box, and stoked the dying embers
in the iron belly.
12(sound cue) The squeak of the stove door over
harmonica and banjo.
13(two-shot) Salina ripped hop’s bloody shirt sleeve
back, and dabbed cotton on the wound in his
forearm.
14(cut to a wide-shot) Buck put a pan of water on the
stove, and Wallace stood by the window, watching
the street. Hop loaded his pistols.
Buck: Got any whiskey?
Hop: In the cupboard behind the coffee.
Wallace: What do you want to do with these bodies?
standing over the dead deputy.
Hop: Strip them of their hardware, and stack it on
my desk, then drag all four bodies outside onto the
boardwalk. They can be collected tomorrow. His
voice sounded raspy.
Salina: Untie your holster--the large cotton swab
matted with purple-black blood.
Hop did as he was requested, sliding his holster to
the side. He placed both .45s on the desk in front
of him. Wallace dropped four gun belts alongside
Buck’s Sharps.
Salina: You got another pair of pants?
Hop nodded, watching Wallace check the load on
Billy’s shotgun. The Sheriff’s cheeks fluttered, but
his jaw was set and he never winced in pain. Salina
cut the pant’s leg around the thigh wound, cutting
small pieces, and working them carefully out of the
torn swollen flesh, like peeling a peach with tweezers.
Wallace: This has been some goddamned night, as
he dragged the last intruder out of the door.
15(sound cue) saxophone and guitar.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN
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Comets
“After one taste of madness, one can be consumed
by thoughts that follow behind like the fiery tail of
a comet.”--Mona Sorma.
Comets are similar to asteroids,
Celestial bodies orbiting the sun,
Composed mostly of frozen ammonia,
Called by many as “dirty snowballs”,
Coming past earth in regular cycles,
Coma is the cloud of gasses forming around it,
Carbon dioxide, water vapor, and ammonia.
Cosmic consciousness expands our minds.
Orion the Hunter can easily be seen in November.
Mega-constellations are low-orbit satellites.
Eridanus constellation is called “the River”.
Tarantula nebula is a large magellanic cloud.
Stingray nebula is the youngest known planetary nebula.
Glenn Buttkus
Pleiades & Acrostic Poetry
Posted over at d'Verse Poets Pub
image from pinterest.com
My Carcajou
“Life will reveal all to you when the time is right
and the moon is bright.”--Guru S. Gill.
In the great northern forests where Sasquatch has
been seen and not seen, where winter has stabbed
into the heart of autumn with icicle stilettos and
deep dangerous freezes, there are isolated places
where there is no man’s track, no smell of tobacco,
no tread-marks, no oder of alcohol, no garbage, no
zap of neon, sirens or horns.
There is a snow wraith that prowls in the deepest
shadows, striking fear into the hearts of cougar,
bear, and men, that possesses granite muscles
undulating beneath a striped mantle, a little
monster with musk sacs, part bear, part badger,
part skunk, with savage ferocity and courage
equaled nowhere--the white wolverine.
Only a few men have ever seen the albino Carcajou,
but I have many times, in my mind, seen the glorious
swath from the powerful shoulders to the base of its
great bushy tail, and the fearsome black-green weasel
eyes, and the razor fangs that can crush bone or bite
through a metal roof. I have seen the skunkbear
sitting back on its haunches like a wolf, and it has
seen me.
From Winter’s skull cap,
it expects me, as I leave
the stink of cities behind.
Glenn Buttkus
Haibun
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
painting by Maxi Rodriguez.
Death as Lover
“What would humans do without love,
become the Undead?”--Terry Pratchett.
Living the plague years,
with a quarter million dead
at our very doorstep,
we can only conjure Hope
from the strength within.
--Glenn Buttkus
To the well organ-
ized mind, death is but the next
great adventure.--J.K.Rowling
When death first touches you
as a youth, it’s a monster
of the first order,
but as it reappears its
features do soften.
--Glenn Buttkus
I am not afraid
of death, I just don’t want to
be there when it happens.
--Woody Allen
Death, as uterine
cancer, lingered with my mother,
taking her at 39,
but I took flight and soared
as all fledglings must.
--Glenn Buttkus
The fear of death is
related to fear of life;
a man who lives fully
is prepared to die.
--Mark Twain
In the Twilight Zone,
Death has the face of Robert Redford,
and the hands of Jesus.--Glenn Buttkus
I don’t want to die without any scars.
--Chuck Palahniuk.
For Sale--Baby Shoes--Never worn.
--Ernest Hemingway.
When people don’t express themselves, they die
one piece at a time.--Halse Anderson.
The Virus has taken
a dear friend of mine at 59,
so she doesn’t have to fight
cancer any longer.--Glenn Buttkus
For me, death is skidding
in broadside in a cloud of smoke,
totally worn out, while loudly
proclaiming, Wow, what a fucking ride!
--Hunter S. Thompson
If Death is a doorway,
and I hope it is, then Covid
is a resplendent Doorman.
--Glenn Buttkus
You only live twice,
once when you are born, and when
you look death in the face.
--Ian Fleming.
Over the last few years,
I’m sometimes awakened hearing
someone call my name.
--Glenn Buttkus.
When he shall die, cut him
into little stars, so that the world
will be in love with the night.
--William Shakespeare.
I’d like to think that
death is just exiting the play to
change costume and return
as a new character.
--Glenn Buttkus
Glenn Buttkus
Renga--haiku, tanka, senryu, & gembun.
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
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Thousand Yard Stare
“Their eyes stared blankly into space. They had a
million mile stare. They had seen forever.”
--Robert Heinlein.
It was everywhere
at Valley Forge in 1777,
chilled to the bone,
hungry, demoralized,
low on blankets and ammunition.
Rising again in 1863
after the Battle of Gettysburg,
a Confederate private,
now a prisoner of war,
3,000 dead,
23,000 wounded,
capped by a glimpse
of Lincoln touring
the terrible battlefield.
Evident once more in 1950
in Korea at the
Battle of the Chosin Reservoir,
where 30,000 American GI’s
made a stand against
120,000 Chinese troops.
Present in 1968
at the Battle of Khe Sunh,
just south of the DMZ
where U.S. Marines were vastly
out-numbered by the North Vietnamese.
Persistent in 2004
In Iraq, at Fallujah,
Baghdad and Mosul,
the inception of the
New Millennium Crusades,
the never-ending conflict.
The thousand yard stare,
so full of death and shock and awe,
the pupils are dilated with paralysis,
images focus behind the lens,
and the occipital lobe
is blood-soaked
and bullet-riddled,
joining the ears
who’ve gone deaf
from the shrieks and screams--
and I see it all around me today,
as millions of Americans
battle the pandemic,
economic catastrophe,
and the rising seas,
while preparing for armed conflict
in our Second Civil War.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub
