Call to Duty

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Call to Duty

“War does not determine who is right,

only who is left.”--Bertrand Russell.

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed. 

Our grandfathers took part

                 in Operation Overlord,

                             just as many of us were being born

in 1944;                most of them departed from Portsmouth,

England, & took part in the largest amphibious invasion in history,

                             hitting the bloody beaches of

Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, & Sword.

Over a million of our grandfathers did not come home.

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

In 1951 our uncles took part

                              in the Korean War (Conflict),

                                        part of the aftermath of WWII,

                                        when the Japanese no longer controlled

the country, & the Soviet Union occupied the north,

                              above the 38th parallel,

                                         where Communism thrived like a pandemic.

Many of our uncles came in amphibiously at Inchon,

and pushed back the North Korean Army 

                              to above the Yalu river,

                              with their backs to the Chinese border--

until hundreds of thousands of fresh Chinese troops,

outfitted by the Soviet Union,

                              flooded into Korea, pushing our uncles

into a stalemate that lasted several more years.

33,686 uncles did not come home. 

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

Coincidently in 1950,

                    the turmoil in French Indochina,

required us to send in military advisors, 

                    & of course in 1964, without

JFK to prevent it, many of us were pulled out of college,

or our civilian jobs, & sent to the delta, jungles, & tiger pits

as the Viet Nam War raged on for 9 more years.

                    In 1968 we were caught off guard

by the Tet Offensive, & it became obvious,

even to the hawk knuckleheads,

                    that the war was beyond any dreams of victory, so

we pulled out with our tail between our legs in 1975.

58,300 of us did not come home. 

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to foreign lands,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

In 2003 the Bush Administration,

                   through lies & deception,

pushed us into the Iraq War, 

                   as many of our sons became

part of the American-led Coalition Forces

                   who conducted a surprise military invasion of Iraq

without declaring War. We fought in that sand-flea infested shit hole

for 9 years--until Obama, fulfilling his campaign promise,

pulled us out.

                   4,487 of our sons did not come home.

Even earlier, in 2001, after 9/11,

                    many of our nephews were sent

to Afghanistan in pursuit of Bin Laden,

                   even though as we concentrated our forces

in Iraq, we had less soldiers there than NYC had policemen.

13 years later,

                  we are still there, and already

2,313 of our nephews did not come home.

Today, this minute,

            President Obama is considering sending

the cream of our fighting men,

            Delta Force, Seals, Army Rangers, & Green Berets,

BACK INTO that camel shit-smeared quagmire

in Iraq, to mediate between

            the Sunni & Shea factions,

& to advise them how to face down

the blood-thirsty Isis fighters;

how many of these boys & men

will never come home again?

                   

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Wee Scunner

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Wee Scunner

“Yer bum’s out the windae”--Scottish saying.

On quiet nights, between trains,

I can hear the faint lullaby of the pipes,

                 & I smile as the sandman

                 puts his thumbs gently on my lids,

                              for I know that soon I will be

transported,

                dreaming of blue faces,

                              fierce Picts, clans of Celts,

standing with

                bare-assed kilted brothers

                              facing Hadrian’s Wall again,

                                                        remembering the Romans

& their fookin’ kingdom of Britannia;

drawn to the deep cold lochs,

to the Highlands dotted with long-haired cattle--

                 enjoying some kind of past-life connection,

to the last of the fir forests,

                 to the wet mountainous terrain,

where once I was a villager,

foraging for a living above 3000 feet,

                  before the deforestation of the region,

                  still alive with bear, wolf, elk, & lynx,

                  before

they were hunted to extinction;

and some nights I remember more,

a lifetime or two,

                 up in the Northern Isles,

a fisherman residing in the Shetlands.

Living now in the vastness of America,

it seems intellectually

               claustrophobic to consider

               that once or thrice I Iived

in a country smaller than Texas,

with a narrow waist to the South,

                only 60 miles wide at its border with England,

where one could see Ireland only 19 miles away,

where Norway or France 

                        could be reached within

                        a few days of sailing.

My genetic recall tingles

                        each time I see an image

                                         or a movie of Scotland;

                                                more so than any other foray

                                                                             or exposure to

any other corner of the globe;        still one must face the fact

that each incarnation comes with its own inherent

limitations.

Sadly,

as I age in this body,

                  traveling has become difficult,

                                        & finances have become meager;

so I have begun to rely on “remote viewing”

                                        & “astral projection”,

accepting the onerous fact than only in the land of dreams

will I frolic in the bonnie beauty that still awaits;

                           remaining confident that my rugged roots

sprang from a Scottish paradise

                           that I will never revisit

                           with this fatigued husk. 

                

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics

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The Centurion's Jockstrap Lullaby

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The Centurion's Jockstrap Lullaby

“I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.”

--Dr. Seuss.

In the forgotten field

                         of broken tombstones,

                         seven Cadillacs burrowed busily

for tender golden sparrows;   leaving their own feathered fins

                          fluttering around their naked

                          steamer trunks that were covered

with Andy Warhol stickers faded over

Lewis Carroll countries

that only appeared in books by Tolkien. 

The retarded Kenworth sat back

                      on its bronze air brakes

                      happily munching its radial fritter

as kaleidoscope buffalo wings suddenly

                      sprouted, then blossomed

                      on ten tan tortoises who

were really not experienced flyers,

quickly crashing into

                                Lady Liberty’s underpants,

                                the Eiffel Tower’s borsalino, 

                                & the Space Needle’s embattled butt.

There were three prophetic mice

that roared in Minnesota, while

                      three homosexual moose

                      were prosecuted for nibbling

on underage mangos in Montana,

that confused state where only constipated 

                      red armadillos are allowed

                      to drive the invisible state trooper

pursuit vehicles, being forced to wear their natural kevlar

24/7.

I believe that Big Bertha,

the world’s largest mechanical mole,

                                                 collided with two albino Orca

in the men’s room

                    of a Seattle Turkish bathhouse,

                                        famous for being relocated

                                                     to Bend, Oregon secondary

to public lewdness, 

indecent violent viola concerts without a permit,

& for wearing lacy women’s girdles

as holiday headgear.

I postulate that nonsense

makes plenty of cents,

            even though we know

that pennies never did immigrate from

            Heaven, Alaska,

            & one day soon will not come from anywhere,

but rather will be roughly rounded up

            like ghetto Jews by jack-booted thugs

trained tenaciously in secret at Ft. Knox--

            & all those holy Lincoln heads will be marched off

to the Federal Ovens,

            first to be incinerated, & melted down,

before being reconstituted as a fully funded shining Colossus,

an 85 story statue created to stand proudly perched

                   across the murky Hudson,

one foot in Manhattan,

                   the other in Springsteen’s cactus garden

in the dense jungles of New Jersey;

that will resemble George W. Bush in

a fetching concrete toga,

                 with twin bandoliers of missiles

                 worn across his concave chest,

                              rows of observatory windows

                              peeking out of his back pockets,

                                            with black beehives for eyes,

                              an elephant’s trunk for a nose,

with patriotic laser beams shooting

out of his clenched fists,

                              both raised over his helmeted head

in gallant defiance;   

                              an olive branch in one,

                              & a carrot in the other. 

             

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Ghost Father

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Ghost Father

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”

--William Shakespeare.

“It is a wise child who knows his own father.”

--Me. 

Glancing back across the entire span

of the 20th Century, having had grandparents

born in the 1890’s, I spend an busy morning

musing over the familial scope 

of my checkered ancestry.

As a kid, a boomer, first born,

independent, creative, 

I was too self-absorbed

to get to know who my mother really was;

pregnant at 15, forced

to endure an abortion

in 1943, when such a thing

was a back room nightmare,

then pregnant again at 16

with me--

she married the first soldier

who believed he was my father,

which he wasn’t;

neither he nor I fully understood this

until 1968, after my mother’s death at 39,

when it came to light

that she had never chosen to share

with anyone who my real father had been;

who must have been some serviceman,

fresh out of boot camp, a tender tryst

on a September eve in the middle

of WWII--some midnight encounter

in the wide back seat of a ’34 Buick,

with a fresh-faced boy headed into combat,

a boy who gave her only a first name--

Curt, Roy, Boyd, Ralph, Johnny, Bobby,

or Tommy; & of course he left her

with me.

Did he ever write her a letter from Italy or France,

or was it just random hormonal ardor, 

lost in the passionate hysteria

of a warm Autumn; two kids sharing

an inexplicable intimacy

for a couple of hours

that manifest itself

into a boy-child?

My realization that my mother’s first husband

was only the first of a long line 

of my stepfathers actually

explained a lot about the lack of connection

I always felt so keenly,

& to the strong connection I made

with my maternal grandfather,

who became my mentor

& father-figure. 

I spent a few decades

during my youth

fantasizing

that surely the Universe

would not leave me dangling,

cast in the thankless role of bastard--

that I would be permitted

on my own, through sheer will power,

to be out in public, some

restaurant, burlesque theater, county fair,

carnival or circus--

& right next to me,

or across from me,

I would catch the eye of some man,

& miraculously I would stare

into my father’s face, 

& we would recognize each other. 

During my 40’s, 

realizations & resignations

banished my childish naivete,

& I had to own this omission,

this voiceless faceless void.

It helped to remind myself

that many sons who knew very well

who their father was--were not protected

from abuse, belittlement, or disappointment;

knowledge of parentage does not carry with it

any form of guarantee that a father & son

will enjoy a loving relationship.

Hell, my Dad could have been

a damaged human being,

turned out to be a psycho,

or a serial killer,

or a race car driver,

or a cowboy,

or a lawyer, 

or the President of American Motors. 

Did I turn out

to be a better man

while carrying my valise

of emotional ignorance?

I guess I will have to wait

for my Life Review

in Bardo

to find out. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Wordsmithing

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Wordsmithing

“ Martin Luther King was the ultimate wordsmith, having incredible

descriptive powers, finding just the right words for the right moment.”

--Tim Roye.

There are those petulant few among us

to whom language

               comes easily;

                           able to read & write

                                       several languages fluently.

How many, I wonder,

                                        to be considered a linguist,

two or ten?

I have always envied them,

for after a brumous lifetime of communicative struggle,

                I am still striving

                to fully explore/exploit

                the vast parameters

of my native tongue. 

I once attempted to memorize

all the “A” words

in the dictionary--

but the task outdistanced me--

                                         my fervor &

                                         my intentions

fell flat,

became flaccid,

                            & b l e w away briskly

like gossamer wildflower chaff on a mid-day breeze. 

The Zealots claim 

that mankind is to blame

for his inability to understand “foreign” languages;

           you know the scene,

there in antiquity,

           after the Great Flood, 

humanity was united & spoke a single language.

                          Several of these groups migrated

                                    to the land of Shinar,

& began to construct a great city,

                                    called Babylon by some,

                                               Babel by others--

       the place, I guess where babbling began;

where those from that homogenous gaggle

decided to erect a behemoth tower

              in the middle of the city,

              a brick & mortar phallis,

thrusting higher & higher toward Heaven daily.

              

               As the story goes 

Old Jehovah didn’t dig their hubris,

               or their probing,

                                 passionate,

                                      penissian 

                                           pariah-al 

                                                 projectile

quickly approaching the buttocks of Heaven’s underside--

I mean more than just irritated,

                     God was pissed off;

                     so much so that he made a appearance

amongst them, which must have been a sight to see,

                     & with a wave of his godhead,

he confounded the speech of mankind.

The fatuous fahtay

dropped their iron utbuhs,

& in a fit of gurgling gepfiss,

they gathered all their kivnek & decepiffs,

loaded them onto their trusty owkvahs

along with the remnants of their zetbuss,

forcing them to abandon their sinful construction site;

to strike out, scatter, spread out all over

the foogah face of the earth, never

to embrace their prideful odemuh tendencies again. 

But Deus maximus est, 

because after that we were allowed

to enrich our new languages

with myriads of nuances,

                     & literature & art & religion

                                                   rebounded & blossomed,

& poetry strode forth in silver armor,

it’s literary lances festooned with Word Banners,

as language became beautiful again,

from haiku & bagatelle

                     to the length of the Iliad,

                     to the lyrical Song of Hiawatha,

from law books to holy texts,

wonderful Words made a comeback--

Thank great Zhygah for that.

As a poor poet worshipping

the vitcheenian magic of words,

I acknowledge that they remain forever

the koemoy of my forays

into verse. 

                                         

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Love Sowing

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Love Sowing

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but rather

by the seeds that you plant.”--Robert Lewis Stevenson.

I once knew

           an old bible thumper

                               who lived in Ballard,

who had been a missionary

                               in Central America.

When I was a callow thirteen,

he showed me a thorny bush

in his backyard,

         saying it had spiritual significance

         because it was a Paliurus Spina-Christa,

the plant the Romans used

to make Christ’s crown of thorns. 

He told me his name was Jude,

& that he considered himself

to be an “organic philosopher”.

“Did you know that man’s seed

              is like that of the black mustard;

              one of the smallest of seeds,

but when cast into fecundity,

              it will grow into a golden yellow tree?”

He showed me a big impressive green house

butted up to a tiny chicken shed,

           yes, he kept chickens in the city--

& in the humid hot house stood

           a dwarf Date Palm plant,

           loaded with fruit;

“Our Lord ate from a tree just like this one.”

& in large dun ceramic pot grew

    a dwarf common olive tree,

    laden with clusters of greenish-black olives;

smiling he gently said,

    “If you ever become a peacemaker, stop by

     & I will give you an olive branch.”

Oddly, he was proud of a tall thick patch of common nettles;

           “These beauties grow everywhere in the world,

              they are one of God’s mysterious miracles, 

for they will sting you almost blind

             if you touch them with your bare skin,

and yet if you pick them with gloves,

            & boil them down,

            their very essence

turns into medicinal teas & salves. 

Near his

         back porch there

                  was this fat rusty wash tub

                                overflowing with lovely flowers

                  growing together,

          intertwined,

their petals shaped like the heads of sea horses; 

“This is my Humanis Tub, 

good & evil, black & white, yin & yang--

Angel’s trumpets sharing space with Devil’s trumpets,

inseparable-creating left-brain right-brain melodies.”

I returned to his place

twenty years later,

ready for my gift

of an olive branch;

but he had died,

& so had his biblical garden,

yet I understood

        that he had enriched

        the soil with his passing,

& my mind with his kindness. 

Seeds of yesterday,

become tomorrow,

& only the seed-keepers

prevent extinction. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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