USA

sambpoet@yahoo.com 

AN EASTERNER'S 
VIEW OF THE MISSISSIPPI

The Mississippi does not run through my veins
Pounding out nostalgia rhythms of Mark Twain
and other homespun riverboat Tom Sawyers.
I see only the muddy waters, barges slow-moving,
kicking up slush from behind them.

This Mississippi they say tells a story
of crossings, of dreams propelled by madness,
of runaways on rafts dark as the night
that plowed the waters freedomward.

Tourists now race to claim second-deck seats
aboard the MEMPHIS QUEEN where the eyes of cameras
record the iron railroad bridge that spans the river
like an iron & stone rainbow washed of color.

I do not know you, mighty river.
You are neither the blood nor the marrow of me.
My fathers never quenched their fathomed dreams
in the depths of you
And I do not hear the riverboat helmsman
chanting knots nor the Union voices after Vicksburg
posturing like saviors in the stillness of your night.

© 1977 by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci

UNDERGROUND

The Onyx Caves in Kentucky lure tourists underground
where a young teen-age guide with flashlight
leads us back-bent down to nature.
Beneath the parking lot two hundred feet down
2,700 years ago an Indian tribe dug its way in
out of the rain and picnicked there perhaps
on high holy days like Sacred-River Thursday
or Thank-the-Great-Spirit-It's-Friday
or a place down in the caves to think
or die or bury the dead.

And so the guide distributes some human bones:
tactile reaffirmations of our link with the past.
Touch the wet cave walls, she says,
the smoothness of the onyx rock,
the water-made indentations in the ancient stone
& how many of you can find the mushroom,
the elephant, the ear of corn in the artistry
of the hanging rock?

By rote the guide repeats another line
to make us tourists laugh.
The walls are wet & cold as death.
Some algae grow beneath the artificial light.
We exit, leaving behind the echo of our laughter
like so many bones, glad to be here and now again,
alive in the sunlight,
as though what we are and where we are heading
are unrelated to what we have seen in the caves;
as though the underground spirits of dead Indians
could not dare touch us.

© 1977 by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci

SKY OF 
INNUMERABLE LIGHTS

This is the night of a trillion stars,
of an emptying of the sky,
of a downpour of manna.

This is the night when graces rule,
the night when small pities
wash from our foreheads
and lost voices find 
proper words again.

This is the sky of innumerable lights,
pinholes in the blink of a Divine Eye,
blessings that shine 
in empty, upturned hands.

The night full of promises,
of gentle, hypnotic rain.

         I wrote this poem with my eyes closed
         to prove that an idea, unleashed in darkness,
         often finds the light
         while invented notions
         planned under bright lighting often fall.
         Yet I am brought low enough
         to beg for alms, offer penance,
         and by memory learn
         small poetic justices.

this is the night of torturing gifts
that hang like ambrosia:
black and blue sweetness
in this empty room,
		without veins,
		without sky.

© 1982 by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci

WHAT GREW OF LOVE

You kill me with my promises,
on a conveyor belt buzz
my body lengthwise like timber 
in a slumberyard, slice cold cuts
of my bruised persona-- long, thin, 
bloodless strips of punished flesh,

all because I swore our love will 
outlive time, that in a spirit 
place we will-- whoever we are--
find all the familiar that
trembles now when we touch, even
without bodies, recreate what

grew of love and feel this kiss.
You kill me with all this--
as though love were only of this 
world  where time insists all things die. 
I have our lifetimes to make good
this promise you use as a weapon 
against me:  Love is the flesh and bone
of which God Himself is made.

© 2000 by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci

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