Two Poems by Philip Butera

 

When a Dragon Blocks My Way

 

Two black and two buttermilk horses pull my chariot through the bull ring.

The matador seems bewildered as I unexpectedly lead the bleeding animal out of the arena

Through to a green pasture,

where he runs on a path between the walnut trees to a peaceful blue lake.

He steeps himself into the wetness, cooling his wounds.

After a time, he asks my horses, "If love is power?"

The horses thrash the water, and the wildest of them

 states,

"Memory is an illusion, and reality is instinct."

 

I am a Knight, muscular, and ready.

The lords say I must search for the Grail, but I know if found,

the world would become more sedate and obedient.

When dragons block my way, I never raise my sword.

I show them my copy of Plato's Republic.

They usually breathe fire, then relax and remark, "The unjust grow wealthy by injustice."

When I speak to them about innocence and idealism, they laugh,

sighting the greatest accomplishment of man

is his ease at betrayal.

 

During the Crusades, I wore neither The Crescent Moon nor the Cross.

I struggled against time in perpetual moral discomfort.

At an oasis, I met an ass who was tutoring a young camel.

The ass was conversant in history and told me that the only realities

are those our minds interpret.

The young camel, whose eyesight was poor

sighed,

"Some things exist regardless of our interpretation."

When I awoke, I found the Crusaders had put the ass on a spit, for they were hungry.

The young camel's legs collapsed because her load was unbearable,

 and she was clubbed to death.

I realized as I dug a grave to bury bones and body

there are limits to our knowledge

for if

we were noble,

both animals would still be discovering,

aware of the sun's warmth

and the moon's light.

 

In a large city with a dormant psychosis

while the art in a grand museum overawes me,

I am told to produce my identification.

I show them my license to discover,

a card stating

I was a sailor during the war.

I follow them to an interrogation room

where they produce a photo of me reading

 Sophocles and Zola.

I am asked to assess the morality of a consequence.

Should it be based on what we believe would happen or what actually happens?

I answer sarcastically,

"How would the restoration engineers like me to respond?"

There is no laughter before a public execution.

I hear in the wind,

Jean-Paul Marat was murdered, Socrates was forced to drink hemlock,

and Christ crucified.

Why should I, a controversial poet,

be pardoned?

I imagine the rolling breakers in a sublime Turner seascape

before answering,

 "If Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God,

and God is just,

 then I am but a reservoir

of the information, I have gathered

from his goodness."

 

Some have witnessed how lethal, dangerous

and freeing a thought can be,

others have knelt at the trough not because they are frightened

but because they have children to protect.

I sit between Ingres' Oedipus Explaining the Enigma of the Sphinx,

and Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titian.

 

An elder raven who once taught law approaches.

He states,

"You have no defense.

The intolerant dismiss the existence of poetry

declaring abstraction has no basis in reality,

and contemporary truth is perception

corrected."

 

Because virtue has no intrinsic value

an Officiant offers me a choice

of choosing the mind or body.

I remember my mother's smile

and have an identical epiphany

as a child

when he first smells

the fragrance of Lilacs.

 

 

 

There was a War Going on Back Then; it Seems There is Always a War Defending Some Gnarled Thicket of Words

 

I'm sorry,

how could I have forgotten?

But it was so long ago.

 

We lived in a moody time back then,

tumbling from rebellious late teens into

shoulder-shrugging pretenders.

It hits fast and hard,

learning the world deplores intelligence

and loves those who quietly line up to die,

be it literally or figuratively.

 

There was a war going on back then,

it seems there is always a war

defending some gnarled thicket of words.

She had long red hair

and eyes that were sometimes green, sometimes blue

but never at ease.

As we lie naked in a small metal bed in a summer cottage,

she told me stories about Trude Heller's in Greenwich Village

and having strawberry soup

at the Rainbow Room atop Radio City Music Hall.

With impatient desires,

wish-fulfilment never gains traction,

it just lingers in a latent state.

We never danced; we just created views for ourselves that would never materialize.

I remember dissecting Holden Caulfield,

she held a whimsical opinion,

while I, forever curious,

asked about subplots and meanings without implications.

 

We had intimate moments,

but they seemed more like capturing

an essence of what was emerging,

something to hold the moments together,

more pleasure than passion.

We were mere blossoms, mingling our spirits

as the waves from Lake Erie reached the Canadian shoreline.

The summer hurried, the moon went through its cycles, and the stars shined bright.

With Autumn came the scents of cinnamon, pumpkin, and damp leaves burning.

The amusement park closed, and the houses along the water's edge were boarded up.

Her hand slipped from mine,

I went to college,

then out to sea wearing a uniform

while

she travelled west

believing in herself and marketing fashion.

 

Sometime between then and now

with another, then another war in the background,

I received postcards from Italy and France,

she gushed about

so many museums and churches to visit.

I had moved south

discovering living is just an impression of life

and dreams,

 fragile memories

yet to be forgotten.

 

Unphased by masks, time scampered

without looking back.

We would meet occasionally.

War was now part of our vocabulary and barely noticed.

I had become sceptical, and she had become distrustful.

We discussed lies woven in truths and ambitious adventures

that would never take place.

Soon,

the conversation spun its way

to those days,

those sunshine days.

A reminiscent summer warmth

would

hold us for a few fleeting moments.

 

At the funeral service

of a friend whose wounds never scared

from a long-ago war

that is still slyly defended

I expected to find her,

but

in a world where boots leave deep impressions 

she had retreated into herself.

Though we may never

toast the past again

I am grateful

for that summer

of textured epiphanies 

where

we had become

part of each other.

 

 

Philip Butera - Philip received his Masters's Degree in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He has published four books of poetry, Mirror Images and Shards of Glass, Dark Images at Sea, I Never Finished Loving You, and Falls from Grace, Favor, and High Places. His fifth, Forever Was Never On My Mind, will be out Summer of 2023. Two novels, Caught Between (Which is also a 24 episodes Radio Drama Podcast https://wprnpublicradio.com/caught-between-teaser/)  and Art and Mystery: The Missing Poe Manuscript. His next novel, an erotic thriller, Far From Here, will be out Fall of 2023. One play, The Apparition. His current project is collaborating with a British photographer, a French artist, and an American graphic artist to produce a coffee table book in praise of Women. Philip also has a column in the quarterly magazine Per Niente. He enjoys all things artistic.