Kafka Sunrise

image from pinterest.com

Kafka Sunrise

“I cannot make anyone understand what is 

happening inside me.”--Franz Kafka.

One morning, years ago, I awoke to an odd

clicking noise. As I localized the sound, I

realized that it was more of a crazed crunching,

and that it was coming from my left ear. I

panicked a bit--did I have a punctured ear drum?

Then the noise stopped. I had my wife look at

my ear. She found nothing. 

The crunching sound would come and go. 

Sometimes it would get very loud, then subside. 

It became surreal, like a Kafka daydream. I 

imagined a tick or a spider burrowing in my cheek.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The noise became 

maddening. Then suddenly it began to itch. I

turned the lamp on just in time to greet an ant

emerging out of the quagmire of ear wax. It

dropped into my hand. I took it outside and

released it. It had earned its freedom.

Last June, beneath deck stairs,

hundreds of tiny black spider’s

eggs hatched babies.

Glenn Buttkus

Haibun

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Love Is

painting by Elena Kotliarker.

Love Is

“I love you simply, without problems or pride; so

intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

--Pablo Neruda.

Love is magma muscle,

the vertex of the flesh husk

we choose to inhabit.

Love is the engineer

that directs the plethora of emotions,

the executive producer

for the daily broadcast

we consider as our life.

Love can, and perhaps must,

overpower the darker impulses,

can smooth them out,

even eradicate them.

If love were a hormone,

it would spring from the heart,

treating it like a railroad round house,

providing for itself several routes of egress.

Love is not lust, not greed or avarice

or selfishness--no, it is the antithesis

of these;        selflessness,

                      vulnerability,

                      integrity,

                      honesty,

                      near transparency

Love can be too often misunderstood,

misinterpreted, misaligned and misused

by a sweet tooth,

     an erection,

     ego, preferences

     and inhibition.

Life can be reduced to mathematics.

Love can combine math and heart emissions,

and provide startling solutions

to problems, diplomacy, negotiations

and relationships.

Love can be the departure & the destination

                     the before and the after,

                     the darkness and the light,

                     the reason d’etre,

                     or Cupid’s curse.

Jesus wept,

out of love

and the lack of it.

Glenn Buttkus

Metaphors

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Under the Sea

image from cesdeals.com

Under the Sea

“I usually solve problems by letting them

devour me.”--Franz Kafka.

Penny Plankton could not swim against

the current.

Sam Sardine gobbled up Penny and her pals.

Sam smiled at his good fortune.

Bradford Bass munched up Sam easily, but

Bradford was still hungry.

Then Timothy Tuna swallowed Bradford whole.

Timothy was happy with his feast.

Sidney Seal scarfed up Timothy in three bites.

Sidney giggled because of his wonderful lunch.

Olivia Orca devoured Sidney while he slept.

Olivia shared her meal with her two calves.

Walter Gray Whale ate up Olivia in one big bite.

Walter felt like the Sultan of the Sea,

for he was the biggest creature under the waves.

Nothing was big enough to eat him.

Mister Morton was a professional whaler,

and he harpooned Walter last week.

All these events may seem cruel or sad,

but this is Nature’s Way,

and we cannot change it.

Glenn Buttkus

Children's poem

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Blackthorne--Episode 101

image from pulpcovers.com

Blackthorne

Cinemagenic 101

Bushwhackers

“Some fell by laudanum, some by steel, and

death by ambush lurked in every shadow.”

--Samuel Garth .

1(sound cue) coronet and breaking glass.

2(medium close-up) Johnny heard the glass break.

3(cut to second story window in the main house)

a brigand had smashed the window with a rifle.

4(one-shot) The Eagle swung the hot barrel of

his Winchester around just as another shot tore

into the tree; splinters stabbed into his shoulder.

In the same moment Johnny got off two shots

in the direction of the figure in the window.

5(sound cue) saxophone and piano.

6(cut back) to the second story window. The

gunny standing there fell face first, breaking

more of the glass. His body hung like a limp

scarecrow, slashed to ribbons by the glass,

and shot in the head and chest.

7(sound cue) bass drum and banjo.

8(medium wide shot) the barn began to smoke.

The tall red double doors swung open and a dun

mule rushed out, followed by two men, firing as

they ran.

9(overhead crane shot) Johnny firing from behind

the tree, and the two bushwhackers scrambling

across the open space between the barn and the

bunkhouse.

10(medium close-up) Johnny firing three times,

his lever action a blur.

11(two shot) the back-shooters kicking up dust

as they sprinted. One of Johnny’s bullets hit the

slower one in the leg, but both men made it to

safety past the east side of the bunkhouse.

12(wide shot) the barn began to burn

13( voice over) Rojo chinche assholes! 

14(sound cue) guitar and French horn over

horses screaming.

15(tighten wide shot) flames begin to lick

around the doors.

16(voice over continues) They burn the fucking

barn--Bob and Red are still in there! Damn it,

Buck, where are you? Bronson has sent half of

his men, and they burn our horses!

17(sound cue) horses screaming and kicking

their stalls.

18(cut back to the main house) black smoke was 

billowing out the window, over the head of the 

dead wrangler.

19(sound cue) horses galloping over blues guitar.

20( medium close-up ) Johnny whirled around,

looking behind him.

21(overhead drone traveling shot) Rod Buck was

racing down the west road, slapping leather, alone

in the carriage. Cheewa was running alongside.

Johnny’s heart rose to his throat, and his wounds

did not hurt any more.

22(medium wide shot) the black carriage came in

with its red wheels spinning, Firing from under the

porch, the wood shed and the bunkhouse tore holes

in the rig’s canvas cover. Thirty yards from Johnny

the sniper under the porch dropped one of the

palominos in its traces. The horse went down,

tripping his companion beside him, jerking it off

balance, and it went down too. Buck jumped from 

the carriage as it snapped its leathers and flipped

over onto its side.

23(tight one shot) Buck landed on his feet, going

into a shoulder roll to break his fall. As he rolled,

two shots puffed up in the dirt where he had just

been. He fired his sawed off at the man under the

front porch. A four foot section of thatch burst into

splinters. At the same time the Thunderer barked

in his right hand, spraying lead across the front

of the bunkhouse. He rolled to safety behind the

overturned carriage. One of the horses had got

to its knees, and it was complaining loudly. The

firing ceased.

24(sound cue) violin, banjo and harmonica.

25( tight one-shot) Buck lie flat against the ground.

He peeked at the wood shed and bunkhouse

through the wagon spokes. The barn was fully

aflame. The main house belched smoke from

its second floor. Flames appeared from the north

side of the house.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub OLN

Prom Night

image from pinterest.com 

Prom Night

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as

to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

--Joseph Campbell.

It was Prom Night.

Rob sat there with his hands in his lap,

holding the corsage.

He was 18, and was there

to pick up Miss Kathy King.

Her father sat across from him

glowering, his arms folded.

Rob had been going steady

with Kath all year,

an eternity in high school time.

He would have liked to fold his arms too,

and make eye contact with Mr. King,

but the young man understood

the courting ritual.

Mr. King was a prominent banker,

and Rob was from a blue collar family.

Kathy’s Dad kept staring

at the modest ill-fitting suit

the boy wore; it was his father’s.

His folks had warned him

about dating a girl from a wealthy family,

but young love disavows

all barriers to its fruition.

Finally Kathy descended the stairs

in her lavender evening gown.

She was a vision of blond cheerleader ecstasy.

He presented her with the compulsory corsage.

Her mother pinned it on her.

Her little sister came out to join the parents.

Her mother told them to have fun.

Her father reminded them of the midnight curfew. 

The kids stood for a picture, waved, smiled,

and rushed out to Rob’s red 1955 Chev Bel Air

convertible.

He opened the passenger door for her.

Her starched petticoats swished

as she pulled them into the car.

As he walked to the driver’s side

he fantasized about “going all the way”

with her, as she had promised.

The Chevy V-8 lit up, the glass packs rumbled

as they pulled away from the curb.

Rob glanced into the rear view mirror;

the little sister was waving good-bye.

The kids giggled nervously.

The waiting for this evening was over.

A half mile away a delivery truck rushed

toward its destination. At the intersection

of Maple & Main, Rob, distracted, entered

the intersection without looking both ways.

The speeding truck T-boned them

on the passenger side.

Kathy was killed instantly.

Rob broke his spine, but survived.

Now a new kind of waiting began,

as the terrible memories raged

like a wildfire in his heart. 

Glenn Buttkus

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Forest of Evil

painting by Behshad Arjomandi.

Forest of Evil

In the darkness of the forest near Vlad’s castle,

the stench of evil has saturated the tender bark

of aspen and birch. The trees became barren.

Last Fall, as the leaves dropped, they were the

last signs of life

The bubbling brook that fed the trees was

poisoned, because of the thousands of corpses

dumped into the creek near the Castle. The water

turned gray, the pebbles turned red. When Spring

arrived the trees could not blossom. Their bark

became black with a deathly ooze.They began to

lean over, their spines broken. Their spindly 

branches intertwined into a bulwark of sharp 

brambles.

First the birds left, except for those who feast on

carrion. Then the animals fled. Soon villages were

abandoned. Years later people asked what had

happened in these woods, but no one knew the

answer because those memories were left here

with the trees.

Glenn Buttkus

Prosery

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Uncelebrated

image from fineartamerica.com

painting by Igor Postash.

Uncelebrated 

“It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone who is 

reaching for the sky just to surrender.”

--Leonard Cohen.

I’ve had several English teachers advise me to

become a writer--but none of them advised me to

become a poet or an actor; two pursuits that

provide succor and heartbreak. I, of course,

became both. I, also, out of necessity, became a

teacher, which paid the bills.

By 1974, I had written two novels--an existential

Western, BLACKTHORNE, and a detective novel,

BAERBAK, placed in Seattle. I submitted them both

for publication. No one was ready for them. I was

advised to write non-fiction. Damn it, I don’t want to

be paid to write--I want to be paid for what I write.

I looked into self-publishing, but I had too much anger

and pride to follow through. I rationalized that to be

published was no big deal; there’s always the internet; 

a select pool of readers. At 75, I can live with that.

Glenn Buttkus

Prosery: Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub