July 23

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July 23

“He makes a July’s day short as December.”

--William Shakespeare

Today is July 23rd, on a day the Lord has made;

the 204th day of the Gregorian calendar,

and who knows what day on the Mayan tablets,

the first time it has landed on a Tuesday

in the last ten years, as summer 2013

has hit like a bellicose blast furnace

clear across this vast continent, coupled

to vicious flash flooding in the deep

arroyos of the Southwest.

How does any Day in History distinguish itself;

well, by the various & specific births, deaths,

& events that have occurred on it, of course.

It is a Leo astrological birth day,

and there were several interesting personalities

that made their debut on/during it--

a slew of entertainers,

Daniel Radcliffe in 1989,

Emil Jannings in 1884,

Ronny Cox in 1938,

Woody Harrelson in 1961,

Michael Wilding in 1917,

David Essex in 1947, and

Philip Seymour Hoffman in 1967;

A couple of baseball players,

Pee Wee Reese in 1918, and

Don Drysdale in 1936, with

the inclusion of one writer,

Raymond Chandler in 1888.

Perhaps it was not a good day to die;

Vic Morrow decapitated in 1982,

Montgomery Clift, with his drug-induced 

heart attack in 1960,

Ulysses S. Grant, checking out in 1888,

with a glass of bourbon in one hand

and a stogie in the other, D.W. Griffith

facing the going to black alone in 1948,

Leo McKern growling like Rumple in 2002,

Van Heflin finally finding Shane in 1971,

and Sally Ride astride an exploding

space shuttle.

The diverse events created counterpoints

to each other, composing a mad concerto;

the typographer, an early typewriter

was patented in 1829;

Fox Films bought the rights to record sound

onto film stock from Movietone in 1926;

Henry Ford sold his first automobile in 1903;

the Treblinka extermination camp was opened

in 1942, deepening the Holocaust;

the lucky Gimli Glider, Air Canada Flight 143,

ran out of fuel and made a perfect deadstick

landing in Gimli, Manitoba in 1983;

the 12th Street Riot happened in Cleveland

in 1967, starting off with a violent gun battle

between black militants and the police.

leaving 43 dead, 342 injured, & 1400 buildings burned;

Vanessa Williams, in 1984, became the first

Miss America to resign in the wake of the bad

press over her nude layout in Playboy. 

I have braved 69 of these July 23rd events,

and this one has already presented me with

the arrival of Kate & William’s baby prince,

the arrival of “Papa” Pope Francis in Brazil,

hours more of the Zimmerman coverage on CNN,

the continuing story of the search for more dead

women wrapped in plastic in Cleveland,

the answer as to what a “Beatles sandwich” was,

more dribble about the fate of Edward Snowden,

and how Billy Ray Cyrus saved his marriage;

another sterling day in the life,

short-sleeved weather, complete

with a couple more surprises,

and it’s not even noon yet. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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Septenary Sinews

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Septenary Sinews

“We shall never understand one another until we

reduce the language to just seven words.”

--Kahil Gibran

We have always looked to the number 7 for luck,

odd not even, and we have continuously

been immersed in septenary myth & reality

since Day One, for it took God 7 days

to create the world, didn’t it--and we spend

all lot of our time trying to avoid a relationship

with the 7 Deadly Sins.

Shakespeare’s seventh play was Edward III,

“All the world’s a stage

and all men and women are but players;

they have their exits and entrances;

and one man, in his time, plays many parts;

his acts being seven ages.”

--As You Like It.

In ancient times there were Seven Wonders of the World:

the Colossus of Rhodes & Great Pyramid at Giza,

the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

the Lighthouse of Alexandria,

the Statue of Zeus in Olympia,

the Temple of Artemus at Ephesus,

the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

7 is the fourth prime number,

actually a double Mersenne prime.

A 7-sided shape is called a hepagon.

There are 7 fundamental types of catastrophes.

7 was considered a God number in ancient Egypt,

and the Pharaohs ordered things in groups of seven.

It was Seven Against Thebes.

There are 7 books in the Harry Potter series.

Harry was born in July, the seventh month.

Wizarding students spent 7 years at Hogwarts.

Lord Voldemort created 7 Horcruxes. 

I read each volume in 7 days.

T.E. Lawrence wrote the 7 Pillars of Wisdom.

George Carlin created The 7 Words You Can Never Say.

The original 45 rpm records were 7 inches in diameter.

Pirates sailed the Seven Seas.

There are seven main Archangels.

President Taft coined the phrase “seventh inning stretch”.

Mickey Mantle wore number 7 on his uniform. 

Buddha walked 7 steps at his birth.

Atlantis, according to myth, was made up of 7 islands. 

There are seven main stars in the Big Dipper.

Most mammals have seven cervical vertebrae.

In British folklore, the Queen of the Fairies,

( Quentin Crisp perhaps), paid a tithe to Hell.

Isaac Newton identified 7 colors in the rainbow.

Diamonds are Forever is the 7th film in the James Bond series.

Daniel Craig is the seventh actor to portray Bond. 

In the past Hindus wrote a 7 in one stroke, as a curve.

Ghubar Arabs made the longer lower line a diagonal.

Europeans added a third line in the middle

to differentiate it from the #1 in handwriting. 

Canada has eleven highways and route 7’s.

Many countries, many in the Middle East, have only one.

America has fifty-three of them. 

Hollywood has long considered the number 7

to be lucky when included in a film title. 

Seven Chances (1925)

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Seven Sinners (1940)

7 Brides for 7 Brothers (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954)

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao ( 1964)

7 Days in May (1964)

Se7en (1995)

7 Years in Tibet (1997).

It should take a reader between 7 seconds

and 7 minutes to read this poem, and

about 7 days to forget it. I’m 7 times

grateful that 7 of you managed it. 

Glenn Buttkus

July 2013

Posted over at dVerse Poets "Poetics"

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Holiday Tale in Black and White

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Holiday Tale in Black & White

“Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer,

but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day

in which we recall everything we have ever loved.”

---Augusta E. Rundell

Christmas Eve came, 

and my youngest daughters arrived

to cook for me, celebrate, play cards, and to phone

their mother who was visiting our oldest daughter

in Baltimore, playing with our two infant grandsons.

My sweet girls stayed until I was exhausted,

hoping to make me forget for a moment

that I was home alone.

Christmas dawned cold, wet, and gray;

just perfect, no in climate weather

to impede my journey to join some friends

for a scrumptious holiday breakfast;

mounds of butter-fried French toast,

flipped about fragrantly in big black pans,

plates smothered with spicy sausage,

lean bacon and fresh fat eggs.

We ate by candlelight, chatting & laughing,

surrounded by ribbons and colorful Christmas

bulbs, silver streamers & gold confetti,

our thoughts twinkling as we discussed the spirit

of the day, and I was the first to notice that something

was changing outside the windows, my God--

it was snowing, fat pointy flakes of spiked white,

first a few squads, then battalions, before

whole armies blanked out the sky;

snow, holy Jesus, snow; a world drenched white,

a rare occurrence on Christmas Day

in Puget Sound; panicking me

as I drove home off of their hillsides, hoping

the roads would remain clear; but soon,

too soon, the snow became rain,

and those overweight snain-drops slapped

my windshield and the pavement like you

would slap a bad dog with a newspaper.

Later, while at home watching

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE for the hundredth

time, other friends called with a gracious

invitation for me to join their family gathering

for Christmas dinner, but I politely declined

the offer, not wanting to be cast as the pitiful

old fool brought in to be fed & fussed over,

dropped down hard amongst a swarm of strangers.

Of course later I did feel hunger’s prick, 

and nothing in the larder seemed significant

enough to fit the image of festive fare, so

out I went with my car, roaming the wetness,

passing all those other homes lit brightly,

filled with family, and all those restaurants

that were darkened premises, festooned 

with handmade signs all announcing

“Closed for Christmas”.

Driving in aimless circles, my lonesome crusade

garnered gold surrounding the bold neon letters

that spelled Denny’s; pulling in happily I marveled

at how full the parking lot was.

They wished me holiday greetings as they seated

me in a large booth alone, & presented me with

a special menu with only ten holiday choices.

I heard myself order #7; meat loaf, home fries,

and apple sauce, and while sipping my strong coffee

I looked about the place, and suddenly, without warning

I was overwhelmed with sadness, I mean what kind

of loser had to come to Denny’s for Christmas dinner?

But as my eyes roamed the room I saw complete families,

truck drivers, pods of seniors, some street people, 

and three older ladies laughing heartedly; some

in work clothes, some in church clothes, focused

on each other, with no one staring back at me;

an invisible man munching meat loaf.

Driving home with my window down, enjoying

the cold air, I recalled that morning’s headlines

in the Tacoma News Tribune:

23 dead from a car bomb in Baghdad,

15 dead from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan,

the armed forces of the United States had received

30,000 turkeys and a flat ton of cranberry sauce,

and the city of Tacoma had counted 800 homeless

souls jamming up the missions & flophouses last night. 

Damn, just another day in the life, no better,

no worse than hundreds of others that had occurred 

in 2007, so I decided that what we needed to do

was take a serious shot at World Peace, treat

our planet better, watch our waistlines, and maybe

elect a woman or a black man as President,

so that Christmas 2008 could really shine. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Celebrating the dVerse Poets 2nd anniversary we will use past MTB prompts

to write from; I chose December 2011, Victoria C. Slotto asking us to write about Emotion. 

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Avatar Blues

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Avatar Blues

“We are not the only avatars of humanity. Once our

computing machines achieve self-consciousness,

they will become part of this design.”--- Dan Simmons

Assimov is smiling as the legacy of Robbie & Hal

has morphed into fingers of reality, for robots

are already everywhere, and we can easily find

those marvelous machines in factories, hospitals,

schools, on the battlefield--assisting surgeons,

building cars, conducting reconnaissance,

clearing minefields & disarming bombs,

or roving around on Mars.

This is hardcore science fact, not fiction,

and we can read every day about the

latest robotic achievements.

There are a group of RFFs, or

Robots for Fun, like BIGDOG

from Boston Dynamics, a gas-powered

hydraulic quadraped that moves animal-like

and can adapt easily to different terrains,

or the WF-4RIV from Waseda University,

a mechanical flutist that can flawlessly

play “The Flight of the Bumblebee.”

or the ROBOVOX, an 8 foot tall structure

that can receive text messages and read

them aloud on giant speakers,

or the Ever 1, a Korean android that can

move its upper body, speak, and make

facial expressions while delivering

lectures or public service announcements;

and already we amass those RPUs,

Robots for Pragmatic Use, like the

Northrop Grumman X-47B, that can land

on an aircraft carrier using only computer

systems, without human babysitters,

or the famous Roomba from iRobot

that will vacuum your floors,

or the Lettuce Bot that is refrigerator-

sized, pulled by a tractor over

a field of iceberg lettuce, doing the

thinning of 20 workers,

or the AMouse that has artificial whiskers

to help navigate it in tight spaces, and

can explore confined surroundings.

So we have to ask ourselves, which

will be more effective, human clones

or robots to perform mind-dulling

factory work, mining, or domestic chores?

What about turning those sad plastic love dolls

into warm synthetic androids, or boxers

& football players into metal combatants 

that can just be rebuilt after a defeat,

robotic cock & dog fighting that would

save the animals and possibly boost our

food supply choices in the future?

Technology has changed humanity,

completely captivated our youth,

and fascinated the rest of us.

But will our worst nightmares about

demonic sentient machines repairing

themselves and propagating a separate

species come to pass?

The pitfalls, tragedies, and mistakes

that accompany computer-controlled

aircraft, vehicles, highways, theme parks

have not fully revealed themselves yet,

and it is unclear as to whether we will be

in control or under the control of this

artificial intelligence;

when the crisis comes will God help us,

sending us another Christ avatar, or

will we finally realize that we have always

been just android puppets of a mechanical

diety, that there will be no humane pity

for our self-induced plight, and that

regardless of our feelings we discover

that “resistance is futile.”

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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The T-Rex that ate Tucson

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The T-Rex that ate Tucson

“Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an

expanded desert of ignorance.”

---Will Durant

“We’re having a heat wave,

a tropical heat wave--” sang Marilyn Monroe

in her very breathy sexy style,

and hell yes, we are,

from coast to coast, 

waves of sweltering heat

with triple digit temperatures,

sporting 100% humidity, causing

dripping shirt-soaking sweat

to paste down your hair, rolling

into your stinging eyes, saturating

your skivvies, making you feel like

you peed your pants when you stand up;

finding yourself in a steamy bar in Arizona,

knocking down your third cold one, still

angry at the overheated assholes encountered

on the expressway; rushing

from the A/C in your Acura

to the icy A/C in Izzy’s, swimming

through the scalding air

like a leaping dolphin, safe

in the tavern darkness as you

glance out the window and you see

a god damned gray green T-Rex stomping

through the parking lot, leaping over dusty pick ups,

and the sombitch is still there after

you have closed your eyes, shaken your

wet head, & reopened them again, 

so you deduce you are not really drunk yet,

so the 20 foot carnivore is not a beer hallucination,

so maybe those dark thunderclouds boiling

in the sky have cooled the upper stratosphere

and the demon dinosaur was merely

a “Fata Morgana” mirage--just an unusually

clear & elaborate bending of heated light rays

that shape-shifted within the bowels of the blazing

compressed stretched air, alternating between

being erect & inverted,

and probably that’s why no trucks had been flattened,

no terrible hair-raising roaring was heard as this hazy

ditzy Dino was dancing to a Latin beat in your head,

that the hot layers of air were acting as a prism,

yes, yes--you remembered now, there is

a life-size concrete Tyrannosaurus Rex three miles

out of town on Route 66, at a roadside park--

so screw it for now, it’s time to order

a beer-and-a-bump, and turn your fevered gaze

to the blond cowgirl in the sexy tattered

Daisy Duke short-shorts, with no bra,

with her wet blouse tied up under his big breasts,

and her bare mid-riff shining with perspiration,

because she was real,

or at least you hoped to Christ

she was as you staggered studily 

toward her shimmering image. 

Glenn Buttkus

July 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Gone Phishing

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Gone Phishing

“I’m a con artist in that I am an actor, making people

believe something is real whey they know perfectly

well it is not.”--John Lithgow

God help us gather the energy to gird our loins

against the fricking & fracking hordes of phishermen.

My own friends were fueled with compassionate fear

receiving an email reporting that I had been robbed

in Spain, was now stranded and sorry, but

I was begging for a 1000 bucks to bolster

my meager abilities to ever get out of damned Madrid,

to arrive home, both happier and spouting homilies.

All claims were callously bogus, of course, but

it did give hackers heinous access to my honied

laundry list of friends and lingering contacts, and

yes, it took a lot of time to reduce the torment,

to untangle the terrible tumult,

to reclaim a replica of control, my rights

if not to privacy, then perhaps just to mock-pastoral 

cyber-freedom; so hey, be afraid of phishing scams. 

Glenn Buttkus

July 2013

Posted over at dVerse Poets FFA

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Vermilion Verses

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Vermilion Verses

“Roses can be red, violets can be blue--

I’m schizophrenic, and so am I.”

--Oscar Levant. 

Red simply is the

most powerful color in

the light spectrum; it incites.

Red represents a

dichotomy, embracing

love & hate at the same time.

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

All colors create

emotional responses, but

only red conjures passion.

In the far East they

feel red brings good luck; God’s smile;

women wear red when they wed.

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

Watching a rainbow,

we witness the power of

red, sensing regality.

China & Russia--

both used red as their symbol

of political prowess.

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

Red on a fast car

gets our blood pumping, our cheeks

flush--sexual arousal. 

The red umbrella

is used in Art to accent

or contrast a dim gray world.

Glenn Buttkus

June 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

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