Season of mists and back to school,
Ruddy browns and falling leaves.
The onset of winter, oh so cruel,
As birds abandon sheltering eaves.

Sometimes you con us with an Indian Summer,
Mocking the end of the holiday season.
But shorter days are still a ******:
To celebrate I see no reason.

You hang around on your mobile phone,
Looking like you’re really weary.
Those birds to Africa have all flown,
Leaving us feeling only dreary.

Where are those summery Beach Boys songs?
Forget them all some say.
Those lovely colours right all wrongs:
The festive season is on it’s way.

For this is the annual Twilight Zone,
The evening of the year.
A time when many a seed is sown
Ready for Spring to appear.

Paul Butters

© PB 5\10\2018.

Honestly, I am barely surviving without you
I now get that it never stops hurting
And all I can think of is how you look in the moonlight
How your lips were cold and slow
How my ribcage broke the moment you pulled me closer
You are alive in every corner of my mind
Feels ***** yet powerful
And I kinda love it

I can't really be alone at night
So I search for slow cold lips and knowing hands
Pain in the chest. I connect you with pain. The good kind.
I summon you at night.
Whatever I touch I leave numb

It is the dumb hour of night
Bereft of all maneuvers
Shadows have come and gone
Spending their agendas
The canvas bland as space
Drapes mute and motionless
As hidden truths
Not a stroke felt
Not a single word flickers
Off intersecting ink
There must be a gale
Deep into the mind
Winnowing
Chaffs of memory.

Once there was Lady Death at
my side. She blew a cold wind
in my room; sang a lullaby of
indefinite colours, a tune
without sound. Neither black
nor white this sad lady wore.
I did not understand she was
there for me. So I began to talk
to her about external things and
life and butterflies. She told me
I would have gone back to the
stadium of a lizard, stuck on a
white rough wall warmed by
the sun. I felt my body heavy
‘till she opened a breach in my
forehead. Then she told me I
would have gone forward to
the stadium of a stone carved
by tears. I felt my eyes blind
‘till she opened a breach in my
soul and I shivered. She told me
at the end that I would have gone
back to the present to the stadium
of a chrysalis. Then she opened a
breach in my chest that poured
dust of pain and my heart became
a butterfly.