Thursday, January 31, 2013

All-That-Is



image of the eye of God borrowed from bing


All-That-Is

“Young man, young man, your arms are too short
to box with God.”--James Weldon Johnson


We spend our lifetime searching for our God.
Too many believe they must cower for God.

I always find the Divine both within & without,
acknowledging the universal power of God.

But when school children are slaughtered 
I am forced to be very sour on God.

Little children’s innocent eyes being closed
by bullets makes me want to devour God.

Those priests, ministers, and clergymen all advise
that we kneel before the regal tower of God. 

Are thousands killed daily as a means
of population control by a very dour God?

When our loved ones die so young,
should we just glower at God?

Can our personal pain & mutual angst be
transmuted spending a holy hour with God?

Too damn often we are completely surrounded
by the pious practicing the diety du jour God.

Is there actual peace to be discovered
in Atheism when we just trower God?

If we can rediscover the divinity within
ourselves, do we then scour God?

Never forget what dog is spelled
backward when in the bour of God.

I would much prefer to visit an alpine meadow
and embrace a gentle wildflower God. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

Would you like to hear the author read this Ghazal to you?


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Knee-Jerks



image borrowed from bing


Knee-Jerks

“Responsibility is like a string we can
only see the middle of.”--William McFee


We have the right
to drive cars, yet
some idiots choose
to drive drunk.

Does this mean they
should take away our vehicles?

We have the right
to bear arms--even
Obama shoots skeet
at Camp David, yet
demented persons commit
mass homicides.

The answers have to be
found within our own
sense of responsibility.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

Would you like to hear the author read this Flash 55 to you?

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Danger: Diatribe



image borrowed from bing


Danger: Diatribe

“Most sermons sound to me like commercials--
but I can’t make out whether God is the Sponsor
or the Product.”---Mignon McLaughlin.

The Super Bowl is soon upon us;
the entire planet awaits not only the event,
but more specifically, the commercials.

Sponsors spent millions per second,
work for months on the planning
of their minute masterpieces,
line up spokes-singers like
Stevie Wonder, Adele, 
Lady Gaga, or Taylor Swift
to sell soft drinks, beer, cars, & insurance,
vie for profits, accolades, awards,
and controversy.

We can barely wait to witness
how many layers of lipstick Flo is wearing,
the absurd CGI adventures of a gecko,
witches in a broom factory,
and a sexy red Cadillac racing
through the streets of Monaco
or the mountain roads of Tibet,

as Madison Avenue prepares to instruct us
on fashion, morals, underwear, politics,
beverages, transportation, reverse mortgages,
ecology, fossil fuels, fast foods, erectile dysfunction,
diarrhea, and adult diapers.

We would like to believe that we
are not other-directed, that we
have a semblance of sales resistance,

but now that TV commercials
are shoved down our minds
in movie theaters, our prodigy
are paralyzed with name-brand quests,
and technology has successfully invaded
every niche, damp place, and wrinkle
of our lives, goddamn it, every day
we begin to look more like lemming
standing in mile-long lines
for the next available techno-cliff.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets-Poetics

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Avias Sward



image borrowed from bing


Avias Sward

“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men
is primarily based on mutual trust.”
--Albert Einstein


It is early morning,
and a light fog lies
like a holy shawl over 
San Francisco bay.

The sun peeks its fiery brow
up over the jagged lip
of the Sierra Nevada to the east;
most of the skyscrapers downtown
find some of their glass catching
searing rays of fire--
orange, yellow, & violet.

Flashes of tiny green wing their way
from the dozens of parks
and secret nesting places
all over that part of the city.

Larger than sparrows,
but smaller than pigeons,
these strong green-tinted fliers
darting in and out of the palm fronds
and thick grey-green deciduous leaves
are red-crowned Conures--
small but mighty wild parrots.

The reddish feathers on their heads,
and the red slash around their feral eyes
seems to deepen in color
as the sun’s early shards
catch them flying eastward.

Alcatraz winks white across
the narrow waist of the bay,
as the sea breeze picks up--
creating white caps
and swirling wind snakes across
the disturbed surface of the water.

In the near distance,
the Golden Gate bridge
is clearing itself of low clouds
as stiff winds blow the morning mists
off its red steel superstructure & cables.

Riding the thermals & twisting
through the breakfast breezes,
three lone Conures become seven,
then twelve, then fifty--some
invisible instinct guiding them,
letting them congregate into
a noisy squawking flock--
like some living feathered sky design,
one arial beast with many hearts,
soaring, beating their blurred wings;

moving as one mass, yet barely
held together with its configuration
shifting, while maintaining itself
as one avian articulated body
bending gracefully
and thrusting itself through the air--

its leaders making sudden
sharply banked turns, where
the out flyers had to swing wide
and strain to keep up,
just before the formation tightened, flying
as one tremendous throb of viridescence
past the Cafe Trieste, whizzing past
the stark white obelisk of the Coit Tower;

nearly a perfect lesson for
the struggling partisan throngs below. 


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Blackhawk Found



image borrowed from bing


Blackhawk Found

“I object to violence because when it attempts to do good,
the good is only temporary--but the evil it does is permanent.”
--Mahatma Gandhi.


I loved reading combat comics when I was eight;
smelling new, unfolded, right off the rack.
SGT. ROCK spewed plenty of hot lead,
heroism always the primary key,
oblivion always the enemy’s fate.

I think my favorite comic was BLACKHAWK,
a 1941 pilot-hero living without dread.
The diversity of his squadron pleased me,
with several nationalities in the pack,
their aerial expertise trumped tough-talk.

Fascination to violence led straight to science fiction.
War in outer space & history seemed to be
a perfect compliment, feeding the lack
of actual thrills within the unsaid,
unseen, inexperienced, non-fiction,

mundane, boring aspects of my life;
all prior to video games, CGI, multi-track
techno-wizardry piling up the dead;
exacerbating violence for kids to see,
and perhaps compounding real madness & strife.

“People sleep peacefully in their beds only because
rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
--George Orwell.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013


Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

Would you like the author to read this Karousel to you?

Monday, January 14, 2013

How Long?



image borrowed from bing


How Long?

“How long will prejudice blind the visions of men?
Not long--no lie can live forever.”--Martin Luther King


My neighbor’s canine howling at sirens
reminded me of dogs as daemon,
companions and heralds for Hecate.

I have a memory of a tall tombstone
in an ancient cemetery, sculpted
with Hecate’s form in tripartile,
three separate, yet conflated, figures--
two with torches, 
one with a great key,
chthonic triplets lighting the way
to the underworld;

godmother,
earth mother,
companion spouse;
the sweetest of spiritual nannies 
dispatched for gentle transitions,
fully restoring the matriarchal magic
to cushion the various dances of death;

benevolent guardians who easily
eradicate the malignant memory
of MacBeth’s wicked Crone,
who tempted him into madness,

Hecate’s influences are felt across the labyrinth 
of history, her image found on thousands
of terra-cotta vases and statuettes,
and residing in old prints illustrating
her nubile followers devouring dogs
fresh from flaming bothros.

Only brightly-coiffed tender-hearted Hecate,
the single daughter of Persaeus, heard
the girl from her cave.--Hesiod.

Like the lonely sailor with Mother tattooed
garishly on his forearm,
like the sad soldier mired 
in the machinations
of Boot Camp, waiting 
for a letter from home,
in lieu of accepting 
all those simplistic sentimental remarks
in literature and greeting cards, I
have always felt totally absorbed by
my unabashed adoration of women;

too often becoming moody & surly while
still waiting for the eventual total equality
of the sexes, in all their various guises,
wondering how many of my past lives
were spent as a woman, or has it
always been just my re-colored pragmatic
emotional adjustment to losing
my own mother at a young age?


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Super Star



image borrowed from my own album


Super Star

“An Actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must
be willing to accept all the experience life has to offer.
In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at
his feet.”--James Dean

We went to the movies a lot,
didn’t get a TV until 1953,
the size of a dishwasher
with a 12” round screen,
watching the world in B&W.

From day one, we three kids
were trooped off by our young parents
to the movies, lots of Saturday matinees--
double bills, plus cartoons and newsreels;

or the three of us in pajamas
in the back of a station wagon
at the Drive-Ins, watching
Westerns, Musicals, & Comedies
between the bobbing heads of Mom & Dad,

eating food my mother had cooked at home,
having a “movie picnic”,
chicken, spaghetti, & pot roast on paper plates,
followed by stale chips & homemade cookies--
no trips for us to the expensive snack bar.

At 12, I was riding a city bus downtown by myself,
and for fifty cents going to the Embassy Theater,
on Third Avenue, 3 movies plus trailers & cartoons.

One memorable Saturday I watched
Clark Gable in BOOM TOWN,
Rudolph Valentino in SON OF THE SHIEK,
& Audie Murphy in THE KID FROM TEXAS--
rapidly developing into a dyed-in-celluloid
movie buff prior to puberty.

No wonder I took Drama classes
in High School, and won “Best Actor” awards;
moving next into Community Theater
working with middle-aged adults who
still felt the call to perform, still had unfulfilled
dreams of careers never pursued,
before I became a college All Star,
jumping into Brecht & Shakespeare
with maximum verve, naivete, & swagger,

leading to hard core Acting training
that became a truncated professional career,
seeming to be always moving forward;
transplanted to Los Angeles,
heart ablaze with expected successes
that a decade later still eluded me. 

But life’s many thoroughfares have several
confusing clover leafs & five-way intersections--
one day in May I took an appealing off-ramp,
traveling toward Education, working with the blind,
and before I realized it, I had set my former
egocentric childish pursuits aside,
as I discovered the genuine adult joy
of helping others, of having legitimate impact
in their lives, of making a difference.

I only rarely look back.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets

Would you like to hear the author, despite his cold, read this poem to you?


Thursday, January 10, 2013

Alabaster Anthem



image borrowed from bing


Alabaster Anthem

“A photograph is always invisible, it is not
it that we see.”--Roland Barnes

The tall white stallion stood silver,
quivering with marbled milky muscle,
sporting an edelweiss blaze,
not completely white, but nearly,
more off-white, streaked gently
with pearl-brown trails,

standing proudly, regally, midst
a crisp white-day moment, milky fetlocks
shaggy-deep in blanco fluff,
whitish on white, the curly hair
of its long mane flecked with snowflakes,
shimmering like chrome sequins, 
its magnificent tail swishing
in the icy brightness,
neighing softly,
its hot breath puffing ivory steam clouds,
its right leg pawing at the snow
revealing a swath of golden hay beneath--
tail flicking, voice nickering, hoof crunching,
creating an equus concerto, barely
acknowledging the other;

a woman in a tight ermine snow suit,
neck wrapped thrice in a green & white scarf,
hood, blanched by white fur, up over
her festive knitted red & white woolen hat,
wearing stylish amber-tinted sunglasses,
holding a camera out from her lovely face,

clicking & clicking & clicking,
shooting fifty times,
the shutter clacking like a jazz drummer,
laying out a bitchin’ beat,
capturing barrel chest,
handsome head held high,
blue-pink eyes,
powerful thighs,
overlapping graceful lines;

there together,
he & her united
by art, poetry, imagery, creativity;
a tiny significant love-making
heating up an indifferent snowbank,
sultry stick figures in a frozen landscape,

perhaps
a magazine cover 
or highway billboard
in the making, sustenance
for her amusement & Muse,
a very social intercourse
in a barnyard,
without words
in that place
and in the twilight zone.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

Monday, January 7, 2013

Psychonaut



image borrowed from bing


Psychonaut

“We are born, live, and die alone. Only through our love
and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment 
that we are not alone.”--Orson Welles

Forever I have felt as if I were suffocating,
that when surrounded by any gang
I became short-of-breath, light-headed,
livid with undiagnosed mundane retro-stresses
that like hungry lizards would chew at my innards.

My sad soul was just a prisoner
of both my bastard body
and my unyielding circumstances.

My psychic scars were unseen,
but sometimes in the moonlight
during those frequent sleepless nights
I could visualize in the mirror
angry patches of discolored cracked skin
that criss-crossed the ever pale contours
of my bareness.

A psychiatrist told me that clearly
since my sainted mother had perished
at my birth, I was struggling with survivor’s guilt,
that my misguided demonic conscience refused
to allow me to experience joy, homeostasis, or love;
the complete absence of love became
a sucking heart wound, 
that I did not believe
I could give it, or deserve it.

My unbalanced self image was a tar baby,
and any semblance of positive vibes
just melted away when in direct contact
with that corrosive black stickiness.

One day while thumbing through
some medical journal in another doctor’s 
waiting room, I came upon an article
on sensory deprivation tank therapy--

psuedo-science at best my right brain monkey
chattered, but I dialed that clinic’s phone number
regardless, and then dragged my resistance
through the sun-drenched doors of perception,
embarked on a passionate project worthy
of my complete attention, eager to close
the gap between angst and function.

They lowered me naked
several times into a blue pool
of warm salt water, letting me lie
weightless on my back, floating
gloriously with no tendency to
have to adjust my posture,
suspended wonderfully in the absolute center,
hardly aware of the gentle slow circulating
current that kept me there, preventing
me from experiencing the trauma
of bumping into, or even touching
walls.

At my insistence, on my third session,
they closed the lid, and as I heard
the clamps click, floating there
in my lightless soundproof pod,
I revisited the womb, reconnected
with the old voyager that had been
chained below decks for so long,
rediscovered the maternal love
that had been the vehicle for
my present incarnation, and finally
embraced the karmic sacrifice
my gracious mother had exercised
in order to launch me into lesson,

so that each time I emerge now
I do so with a full heart,
for I am grateful for the discovery
of my true loving self
that had waited patiently 
in the liquid.


Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?