Monday, May 31, 2021

White Buck



image from pinterest.com

 White Buck

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, and

pretty soon you have a dozen.”--John Steinbeck.


Alice

should never have

let her curiosity

be her guide,


She

knew it was

lethal for cats,


but

she was still curious

as to why

a white rabbit

carried

a watch.


So,

down the rabbit

hole she went,

never to be

the same again.



Glenn Buttkus


Quadrille


Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Blackthorne Episode 135



image from westernpulpcovers.com


Blackthorne


Cinemagenic 135


Stalking


“Be leery of silence. You may not be the winner. Often 

people are just busy reloading their guns.”

--Shannon L. Alder.


1(sound cue) clarinet and banjo.

2(one-shot) Ryker lit his cigarette, took a couple of

puffs, and raised his fist as a signal.

3(overhead drone shot--medium wide) a tall lean 

rider on a black horse led the others down.

4(close-up) Buck smiled sarcastically.

5(medium close-up) the rider in the lead was

Thor Bronson.

6(sound cue) snare drum and harmonica over the

wagon drivers Gee-hah, and little bells jingling

on the Percheron’s tack.

7(stationary shot) as Thor, the wagon, and two drag 

riders, passed in procession.

8(cut to medium wide shot) as Thor and the others

reined up behind Ryker.

9(close up) Buck lying down in the tall grass, his

Sharps at his side.

10(sound cue) voices at a distance over harmonica.

Buck could not hear what they were saying, but he

could hear them talking. The lanky hand that was

driving the wagon, swung the two brown behemoths,

huge even at a hundred yards, with tufts of silver

over their fetlocks, around the stately maple and

pulled them up parallel to the line of stiff death,

the bodies of their compadres. The driver set the

brake, and jumped down, just as the two punchers

dismounted. For an awkward moment, they all stood

with their hands on their hips, grimacing as they eye-

balled the cadavers. Thor, still mounted, yelled

something, sawing the air with his left arm. The three

men immediately starting loading the bodies into the

lumber wagon. BRONSON TIMBER CO. was painted 

on the sides. Buck could see that Thor wore a

bandage on his gun hand.

11(sound cue) piano.

12(close up) Buck pulled his red neck scarf up over

his nose; a stiff breeze brought the stench of sun-

warmed death up over the bluff.

13(close up) Buck held the front sight of his buffalo

rifle on Thor. At that distance it would have torn the

gunfighter’s head clean off his shoulders, creating

a Western version of the headless horseman myth.

14(one-shot) Ryker dismounted. He walked toward

the llow-roofed bunkhouse, striding in his irritatingly

relaxed manner, puffing on his brown cigarette.

15(cut to wide shot) As Ryker disappeared into the

red-washed bunkhouse, Thor got down off his black.

He walked the horse over to the west end of the

bunkhouse.

16(sound cue) snare drum brushing.

17(close-up) Buck held a bead on the back of Thor’s

head, steady as a rock.

18(close up) Thor was staring at the charcoaled 

smoky remains of the barn, and at the shapeless

lumps of burned meat that had been two stallions.

19(close-up) Buck fought the urge to squeeze off a

shot, and put a fifty-caliber slug between Thor’s

ears, ripping his skull open and splatter his brains

all over the yard.

20(wide shot) Ryker emerged from the bunkhouse,

and stood by the doorway. Thor nodded consent, and

the old foreman, began tossing chunks of firewood

from a pile by the door, into the depths of the building.

He took a knee, and struck a stick match off his boot

heel, leaning in, cupping his hands around the infant

flame.

21(close up) Again, buck resisted the hot urge to let

the Sharps speak, to have the last word.

22(sound cue) blues guitar slide and harmonica 

huffing, over a fire’s crackle.

23(wide shot) the bunkhouse exploded into flames.

That pesky breeze brought the smell of kerosene.

Ryker whipped his hat off, and slapped it against

his leg, jumping up and down like a baboon. Thor

had remounted, his back to Buck, ramrod stiff in the

saddles, savoring every lick of the flames. The 

loading of the bodies was completed, and the three

wranglers strolled over to admire the fire.



Glenn Buttkus


Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

A Real Dick



image from amazon.com 

A Real Dick


“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality

to go insane.”--Philip Kindred Dick.


Me: Ladies and Gents, today’s guest is author

Philip K. Dick.

Dick: Deceased author, don’t leave that out.

Me: How would you like for me to address you?

Dick: Address me, undress me, who gives a shit?

How about a Fucking Ambulance--that would be cool.

Me: How about Phil?

Dick: Yeah, sure, that or PK, or Big K, or the Dick, or

Cosmic Dick. When I was 21 I used pen names like

Richard Phillipps or Jack Dawson.

Me: Looking back on your life, do you have any regrets?

Dick: Sure, 53 years of them. When I died in 1982 of

multiple strokes, I’d already been married five times.

Me: I think Ernest Borgnine was married eight times.

Dick: Fuck Ernie, I was stoned for most of my life.

Me: Did this influence your work.

Dick: You know what they say, You can’t be a proper

writer without a touch of madness, can you?” Yeah,

I struggled with mental problems all of my days.

Me: Was this ever diagnosed?

Dick: I was told that I was crazier than a toothless blind

three-legged dog with blue balls and a useless boner.

Me: Robin Williams used to talk about that.

Dick: I loved him, but in the end he was a coward; 

couldn’t hack the pain.

Me: Come on, you attempted suicide several times.

Dick: I never said I was a hero. I talked tough, but

I wore lace panties.

Me: I think your unique perspective made you a more

insightful and prophetic writer.

Dick: Fucking A.

Me: How do you feel about the Hollywood adaptations

of your work?

Dick: I died before BLADERUNNER came out, so I

never got to cash in on my new popularity.

Me: They filmed TOTAL RECALL (twice), THE MAN IN

THE HIGH CASTLE, MINORITY REPORT, THE

ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, and A SCANNER DARKLY. 

Dick: Ain’t this a bitch? I was broke all my life. Writing

science-fiction for Ace hardly pays the rent. I was

never mainstream. I had to use my wives as patrons.

Me: I have always placed you high up in the

lexicon of Sci-Fi authors.

Dick: Fuck you, guys like Bradbury, Heinlein,

and Assimov made money. My dozens of

novels are considered pulp fiction.

Me: Uh-huh, it’s like poetry--you can be a great 

poet but the pay is still shitty.

Dick: I wrote some poetry.

Me: Really, I’ve never read any.

Dick: That’s because I burned it. Robert Heinlein

was a mensch--he saved my ass several times.

Me: How did he do that?

Dick: He just called me up out of the blue, praising

my work. He was a real friend. He loaned me 

money a couple of times. He was the best of us,

even though he was a Republican.

Me: I really dug the metaphysics in your EXEGESIS

series.

Dick: Yeah, me too--even though it was some flipped-

out shit.

Me: Well, thank you, Phil...this is all we have time for

today.

Dick: Wait a minute--this was it?

Me: Yes.

Dick: Christ Almighty, you are the real dick here.

Me: Probably.


 

Glenn Buttkus


The quote was from the film, QUILLS.


Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Monday, May 24, 2021

Blood Moon Rising



image from Wikipedia.com

 Blood Moon Rising

“We are all like the bright Moon, but we do have our 

darker side.”--Khalil Gibran.


There it is on a warm Spring night, near the end of

May; colossal, humongous, surreal. It is so bright,

that on such nights, I have walked in the woods

without a flashlight. Lunatics, poets, and bipolar

types act out during a blood moon. Werewolves

sprout fangs and claws, while vampires stay within

the shadows.Wild animals get skittish when night

becomes day, just as I felt in Louisiana when it

became very dark and silent at noon, while the car

radio blared a tornado warning; uneasy, off-kilter.


I’m not a selenophile, but as I understand it, the

moon is about one quarter the diameter of the

earth. In an odd celestial dance, it rotates as we

do, and it’s a bit shy about its backside, constantly

facing us, like a performer in a Greek mask. The

dark side is a place of legends and mysteries.


Between 1969-1972, America’s Apollo Program

landed twelve human beings on the lunar surface.

This pissed off the Russians and the Chinese so 

much, no one has left a human bootprint in the moon

dust for 47 years. Many of us thought we would have

a colony on the moon by now. With all the bored

billionaires out there playing with their space toys,

I hope there will be men on the moon before 2044,

when I turn 100.


Wolves and simpletons

howl at the moon, while I just

toss it hot air kisses.



Glenn Buttkus


Haibun

 

Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Our Nightmares



"Trumpenstein" by Dave Pell.

 Our Nightmares

“Our future should be carefree, living in the light, 

not inhabiting a nightmare in the darkness of

the soul.”--Dave Pelzer.


With the media it seems,

its focus jumps around,

featuring death as laser beams,

and migraines that pound.


We gulp at the darkness

to get it down fast,

not using our smartness

as we did in the past.


We live in a nightmare

that the world must share,

with too many bad actors

and too many deadly factors.


Right here we’re over the hump,

still trying to get over Trump,

but he is a city cockroach,

and he feels beyond reproach.


Many of us got the vaccine,

as Trump did in secret,

but he’s too damn mean,

knowing now he can’t keep it,

the oval office and the power,

with more gold toilets in his tower.


He festers in Florida,

polishing his swastika,

like a very rotten tooth,

and stranger to the truth.


A wolf no longer at the door,

just a pile of vomit on the floor,

he’s still got that smell,

like brimstone in hell.



Glenn Buttkus


Posted over at  d'Verse Poet's Pub MTB

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Blackthorne Episode 134

 


image from pinterest.com

Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 134


Shaman


“Shape shifting requires the ability to transcend

your ego attachment; then you can slip in and out

of animal and deity forms.”--Zeena Schreck.


1(sound cue) loud buffalo hooves over snare drum.

2(medium one shot) Buck put down the big breech

loader and stood up calmly to face Tatanka--the

raging frost bull.

3(cut to overhead drone shot) The buffalo bearing

down on the hunter, as Buck stood his ground.

4( cut to behind Buck) as the bull charged. 

Suddenly the great albino came to a halt, twenty

feet from Buck, catching its balance immediately,

a dust cloud settling around it.

5(sound cue) coronet and castanets.

6(two-shot) the huge hoar ox shook its shaggy head,

and settled to the ground, folding its thick legs

beneath it. Buck did the same, resting his fists on

his leather-clad knees. The bison switched its tail at

a squadron of horse flies, as it held Buck’s weary

blue eyes with its harsh red ones. An arrowhead still

embedded in its left shoulder, had a red feather

attached to it, and it flapped gently in the breeze.

7(sound cue) a cacophonous blast of a dozen

Sharps and Spencers.

8(close up) Buck’s eyes seeing, remembering...

9(insert scene--overhead shot) a buffalo slaughter,

the herd surrounded by hunters all firing at once.

Heavy bodies crashed to the ground. The Sea of

Hair flowed with blood and bleats.

10(sound cue) an eagle’s scree over a saxophone

squawk.

11(medium close up) Buck looked up as the eagle’s

shadow crossed his face. When he looked back at

the bison, he saw a Shaman, a Lakota medicine

man of the Buffalo Nation, sitting cross-legged,

wearing a white buffalo head dress. His face was

painted white, with a red swath across his eyes.

He wore a bison vest, his bare arms painted 

white with red lighting painted on both of them

Buck nodded, and the nod was returned, their

eyes locked, their jaws set. Silence reigned.

Buck: No...I am not ready.

12(sound cue) the staccato of many horses.

13(two-shot) Buck and the Albino rose together.

They could hear the horses laboring along the

switchbacks below the ranch, about halfway up.

The great Bull, returned to itself, pawed at the

ground, backed up, glanced once to the north

and the approaching horses, once at Buck, and

charged off to the east, moving at a swift gallop

for a beast of its size, running toward the purple

mountains.

Buck waited until the flashing white hooves were 

gone, thundering into cyan shadows.

14(tracking shot) Buck picked up the Sharps and

ran across the yard in huge strides, spinning up

soft clods of dirt, heading toward the flat bluff above

the burned barn, where El Blanco had materialized.

As he reached the top, he stood for a moment to

catch his breath. He could see his family plot a 

hundred yards away, three gray tombstones boxed

in with its short picket fence, all white-wash in the

sun. Wait a minute--there’s someone standing over

there, an Indian. He blinked and the person was

gone. Christ, could it be Johnny?

Buck jumped into a thicket of tall scrub oak, and he

saw a rider come over the rise at the head of the

drive. The ground he knelt on was damp with dew.

He could smell huckleberries, wild chives, ferns,

black powder, burlap, and his own sweat. He parted

the brush in front of him, and peered out.

15(sound cue) harmonica and guitar.

16(wide shot) He could see them all clearly now. 

There were four riders and one wagon, pulled by

twin Percherons. The point rider came down slowly

into the yard, while the others watched and waited.

The wrangler sat a horse well. He rode past the

eight bodies and the maple tree, and pulled up in

front of the bunkhouse. He was an older man, gray

stubble covering his face. He wore a long-barreled

Colt. He swung his left leg over the saddle horn,

and built himself a smoke. It was Bronson’s

foreman--Ryker.



Glenn Buttkus


Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN