Gethsemane

image borrowed from bing

Gethsemane 

Whether

to gallop or gallump,

to honk or hork,

to huggle without haggling,

this clearly is my trilemma.

I mean

how does a wordsmith lipskip

into a garden of nonsense

without accidently trompsing

the tremble def terrariums,

or blurping a disgusting viscus 

of scrittled ingst all over 

the innocent hipatitus blossoms?

Well, in a rare moment

of linguistic slickery,

I just launched several 

ebriated word missiles

and made my exit 

maze-right.

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on flipside records

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Gabriel's Riff

painting of chet baker by debra hurd

Gabriel’s Riff

Another awkward awakening 

from a deep sleep,

jerked into a jagged miasma, grappling

with the conflicted joy of visiting

the garrulous ghosts of family past,

all much younger than you, yet impervious 

to the ravaged pockets of time, a sharp

carbolic taste of tar on your swollen tongue,

your heart doing the shuffle-step stumble

with each ragged inhalation, several

hallowed faces still lingering large

without haloes or horns, just loving eyes smiling,

their sins shouldered long beyond yesterday,

their warm arms still wrapped around you

in a bucolic bruising embrace, 

their unabashed affection actively seeping

into that nether-space between

dreams and waking,

death and honor,

recall and the veil.

Sitting up, the sleep-scape images were still

vibrantly extant until that old companion 

of aphasiac consciousness began to erase

the synaptic links to your REM journey,

and the urgent need to urinate

usurped the need to remember. 

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on flipside records

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Equinox

painting by susan i.c. howell

Equinox

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf 

is a flower.”--Albert Camus

Here in the northwest, Autumn can be

a polite performer, waiting patiently in the wings

for the Indian Summer to wane;

but then it chugs out to center stage

like a runaway bulldozer, inexorable,

terrible in its turbulent intensity,

like some East Indian god statue

with twelve arms and eyes of fire,

and held in each hand of bronze

there is a different paint brush,

dripping with several powerful pigments

like

lemon mustard yellow,

cadmium deep red,

morose magenta,

indigo and cerulean blue,

cobalt green,

chromium oxide green,

buff titanium,

golden ochre,

mars violet,

burnt orange,

soft suede brown,

and raw umber--

the naked evidence of what happens

to living things that are kissed

too passionately by a rainbow.

Residing in the autumn of my own arc,

I dance deep in everyone’s leaf sculptures,

inhaling the dampness, the early onset

of a beautiful epilogue, pretending

for a miniscule moment

that the white death

is not next in line

for all of us. 

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets

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The Empty Chair

image borrowed from bing

The Empty Chair

Where is the truth,

the actual essence

of the problems

or real solutions for them

in this country?

Jesus, 

we pick a President

like we pick a sports team

a favorite tavern

or a one night stand--

with our hormones,

that have been honed and molded

with a lifetime of predispositions,

double-speak and demogogarie. 

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on Mr. G-Man's Flash 55

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Kometes

image borrowed from bing

Kometes

“For most of the history of our species, we have been

helpless to understand how nature works. We took 

every comet personally, and had to create myths

as an attempt to explain the patterns of nature.”

--Ann Druyan

My grandfather was a wonderful landscape artist,

who, facile as a Faustus, somehow cajoled

the sky itself into accepting temporary residence

on several of his canvases, creating uncanny

unsettling vast horizons filled with cloud formations

that had depth, perfect clarity and exaggerated realism--

so much so that the worshiping clamoring crowds

felt compelled to dub him affectionately: 

“Sky Carpenter--Master of the Skies”, 

and he was, controlling light, shadows, mists, clouds,

the sun and all the elements like a Norse God,

and his hundreds of paintings swirled with spiritual splendor,

until toward the end of his life, when his brushes moved 

more slowly, his ancient heart pumped erratically 

as ten kinds of pain rushed through his shaking limbs, 

and dexterity abandoned his fingertips; 

he growled like a grizzly

within the dark cave of his creativity, 

painting individual portraits of the pain spawn,  

exposing their faces.

The sky dared not to elude him as it grew closer

and clearer than ever, and the point of parallax

allowed stars to suddenly be within reach

as new planets appeared behind his eye lids.

At night, he said, it felt like he could ride a bolt of light,

remembering that wondrous evening when he had 

stood with his grandfather on a dark hillock in 1910,

watching the night sky in childish anticipation

of the magical materialization of Haley’s Comet.

In 1986, when he was 88 years old, Carpenter waited

like a wolf for the faithful comet’s return;

We knew exactly how it would be;

I would stand by his side as first grandson,

and it would show itself just after midnight,

and he would shout its name, and it would

come to him, a great cosmic creature 

scorching the treetops;

“Good Bye, Butch!” 

he would bellow before he lassoed the maverick comet,

throwing himself onto its fiery back, grabbing

two handfuls of stardust mane, with space fireflies

buzzing in his long gray hair, managing one small wave

before he dug his strong old legs into its shimmering sides

and rode off into the vast silence of the cosmos.

And that 

is just how it happened, leaving me here

to relate the tale; but how in hell does one begin

to explain to folks that my grandfather rendezvoused 

with a heavenly traveler, pulling down the mother

of all comets, hopped aboard and rocketed off

into some sweet dark distant oblivion?

For Christ’s sake,

no one will ever believe me.

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Erato

painting by filippino lippi.

Erato

Hey, it’s Labor Day again, reminding some of us

who have been relentless in our former servitude

that “retirement” becomes more than alluring

as we start each day needing to gobble a handful

of pharmaceuticals,

although Prozac is no longer among the colorful array

of infallible medicinals since we were pleasantly

surprised to discover that the complete curtailment

of our past vocational obligations was the actual cure

for free-floating depression,

that and a freshly evolving wit evidenced and emblazoned

on our knight-errant banners flapping from our bike fenders,

as we awaken daily more energetic and driven than ever,

anxious to strap ourselves into another adventure with

our newly purchased electronics, happy to entangle

ourselves into a hive of internet fellowship that actually

touches every corner of this shrinking planet,

although I have become mistrustful of anyone

who resides in or near Pittsburgh, for those folks

seem to consider my personal creativity as

a feckless endeavor, and that cretin-al judgement

is just not acceptable to this old poet,

for truth is where you find it, if you recognize it,

but the accurate interpretation of that truth

can be achieved without soliciting 

the surgical services of some literary internist, 

those conniving cajoling consumptive critics,

or the blessings of a priest,

or the machinations of a politician, 

or the baptism of fire;

just look beyond the surface of the mirror

to the beautiful soul that shines

through your retired eyes.

Glenn Buttkus

September 2012

Posted over on Shawna's Flipside Records
Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN60

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River of the Air

image borrowed from bing

River of the Air

“I came upon a child of God,

he was walking down the road

and I asked him,

where are you going?

And this he told me.....”

--Joni Mitchell   1969

Thunderous eruption, rain squalling,

shutter slamming, car crashing beat

with raunchy rhythms crashing through everyone

like blue ice lagoon waves washing

over the brilliant white sand

between our naked toes.

Shaggy minstrels maneuvering melodies

drawing a quivering throng of humanity

tight together at Sky River 1969;

cacophonous current without water

perched on a shimmering laser-lit Zeus stage

thrusting reverbed electric sobs

mellifluously out over the multitudes

who were talking, praying, singing, crying

about love, and loving out there

in the red dust that settled on a

many thousand-lipped smile.

Hosted by a stoned bearded Buddha

begging for a blow job, and braying:

“Yes, there is misery in this world,

but there is also the get high of happiness!

Which do you choose?

There can be freedom, equality, brotherhood;

just look around you!”

And we did,

and there was.

Strangely absent 

was that jagged junta, 

the bristling laurel of pigs

usually prevalent at such joyous events;

gone even was the threat of sober steel,

that vicious arm-in-arm lock-stepped

riot shielded helmeted Hessian terror--

present instead

was a great iron train on towering tracks

that slowed while people waved

and slipped away.

Sure, there were some among us

who were spaced out, super-stoned

as drugs were vended like peanuts,

and there were some who ran naked

through the crowd, mostly ignored,

drowned out by the mighty music,

just silly naked asses dancing

off the beat while spilling their beer.

For most of us the loftiest rapture

materialized from just being

a single intimate cell

in that sublime creature

we had all become,

fucked up, freaked out, free as birds;

blended, weaved, woven, sewn inseparable

into one enlightened cosmic being,

one great throbbing entity

with a hundred thousand limbs

with ten thousand mouths

with the strength of millions

singing one common song

of rebellion,

of liberty,

of youth,

of love.

When the light on the earth passed on

and the sun sank into the horizon armpit

like poppy wine smearing the sky,

three giant screens behind the musicians

exploded with manufactured color,

extending the sunset long into the busy night

as we hugged, swayed, kissed, and dreamed

of a time when brotherhood would replace nationalism,

and the land would ring with freedom.

Glenn Buttkus

August 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets

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