The heart is a soft paper
It can't carry the heavy hate far away

the poetry gene
a stylus into wax
from bird feather quill
and fountain pen
typewriter clack, clack, clack
to computer key board
silent poetry.

what hour will claim a last breath
-a goodbye to all illusion

a slipping away unnoticed
-by a world too preoccupied
with itself

grant me my hour
I shall embrace her

open mine eyes to truth
and enter the great silence.

The world is a mirage of echoes,
versing past my vision like illusions.

I try to reach out, but shadows hold
no grasp of my disappointment.

Failures  mirror on myself as they cling
to my insides like teardrops of acidic despair.

They melt away at the picture perfect hollow
smiles that are cracking within each falsehood.

I'm tired of the scars of my past, stories that
bled, healing but still bleeding beneath myself ..

fair bird of winter's pleasant nights,
depart at once thou must
when summer's incense valour'd burns
and wafts about with gust

thy sickening sweet hawthorn is gone
rose buds bloom in his grave
like they, like we, art all but same,
of time and season slave!

So long! fair bird, take my adieu
and of our season past;
that fought in vain the mighty tide
of change, but could not last

with change of season, bird must leave
and bid her flower adieu
only till blossom ripens fast
and old's replaced by new

Oh for a world without wars!
Free of terrorists.
Where each and every one of us
Can go about our daily lives
Without any fear.

But I read somewhere
That there may be a price to pay:
Loss of Freedom.

Think of the USSR, or better still, Yugoslavia.
Ruled by rods of iron
These counties showed us facades
Of calm.

But once those dictatorships disappeared then
Those underlying differences emerged.
The Balkan States were a case in point:
When Yugoslavia went
All hell broke out!

So when I suggested that
A benevolent world government
Might cure our ills,
A warning was shot across my bows:
“Be careful what you wish for!”

For what good is “Peace”
When no one dare speak out
Or act in a “different” way?
“1984” soon springs to mind:
Droves of mindless clones
Dumbed down by drugs
And Media driven hypnosis.
Totalitarianism at its worst.

What we really need is an end to violence
And every other form of Abuse.
Free thought
Married with respect and tolerance
To our fellow men
And women.

World Peace only comes free
When the people are free too.
Freedom of the individual
Based on mutual respect
And better still
On Love.

Paul Butters

I took the gamble
and the dice are still rolling

I chose solitude
and an invisible lover

poetry over silence
silence over the market place.

an oscillating red light
appeared in the night sky
so bright its tone of blazing
was a shooting star