he had arms like a latch
he put her under lock and key
once he closed them, she was trapped
he will never set her free

This planet orbits a yellow sun like ours.
It is in the Optimum Zone to support life.
Sure enough it has a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Highly intelligent life has evolved in its seas and oceans.
Its continents, however, are dominated by a species of primates.

Over the past 300 of the planet’s years they have developed
Some fairly high technology.
But they remain carnivores
Who regularly commit genocide.
They cut down swathes of natural forest
To grow chemically protected
Genetically modified nutrition-sources.
And they mine their planet empty
Of its mineral riches.
The planet’s ecosystem is being rapidly destroyed
By them.

Socially and psychologically they remain primitive.
Yet they possess the means to blow their world
To pieces.

With heavy heart I have to advise
We sign this planet
“No Entry”
For the foreseeable future.
“Forbidden” indeed.
A planet we call MW Orion 8478-3
That its natives call
That ever so common name:
“Earth”.

Paul Butters

Sometimes I feel old,
So old that I treat the people of my age like babies,
Like they would get on a broom stick and fly to foreign lands,
over the hills and across the sea,
Over the mountains draped in snow,
Over the autumn fields green and yellow
Through the forest where my childhood stood still
Scared and lonely
I look at my fingers and the pen lying dead on my diary
Dear world, do you know that I exist?
I am trying to bridge the distance with poetry
And fill the scars with dreams
Dear sun, please stay
A little longer i beg

Just because it ended
doesn't mean you have to
set fire to what you've built.

You can just
not visit there
anymore.

Baby got thighs
like she ain't afraid of gluten

Way she put it down
like a law, like Newton

The weeds belch forth from
every opportunity .
The marbled marmalade has lost
all it's glazed perpetutuity
Ductile iron lace , once dreams ,
covered in mist and rust
Petticoated ghosts of little girls
Swing from chain linked imaginations
A wearied moon plexiates
The trees tier the moon away
And I am missing you