21st Century contraption of a mind , snatched from birth , taught how to "Walk the Line , " Hammered into conformity , Play Doh brains pressed in a mold , dressed , plopped on a conveyor , not one piece out of place ..
Our State cores a whole , pours a mandatory twelve years of robot ideology between our ears , who we should emulate , who we should fear
..  Fed factory Farm swill , sequester our imaginations , zero tolerance , shot full of Ritalin ...

Are they right?
Is our “Universe”
The Be All and End All?
Is it even the Only One?

Or is our universe one plume
In an infinite cloud of plumes?
One rocket in a great celestial
Fireworks display?

We may well ask.
And ponder on the notion this plume cloud
May be replicated
Countless times
In parallel dimensions:
A multiverse
Beyond our wildest dreams.

And God may be
A God
Amongst a Race of Gods:
The Greeks and Romans right,
After all.

Yet what matters most to us
When all is said and done,
I have to say,
Is none of that
But simply
Whatever happens here
On this little blue world
In this corner of
The Milky Way.

Paul Butters

I can hear the ocean in my earrings they are filled with
saltwater I can hear the music echo in my exoskeleton
I can hear your voice through my ribcage telephone

Waiting around for wherever I want to go

subtract sanity from misery
add a little violence
multiplied by duplicity
those voices never silence

divided by the mystery
carried over to tomorrow
this beast that lives in me
the sum of all my sorrow

She was as light as a feather
Carried on the sweetest wind.
A tonne weight locked
Around my fiercely protective heart.
As sure as an apple falling from a tree,
She brought uncertainties in abundance.
Physics had no question
For the answer she gave.

Drinking my tea
Without sugar-
    No difference.
                                        
The sparrow *****
    upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs
                                        
Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.
                        
Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.
                                        
        Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.
                                        
I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?
                                        
Reading haiku
I am unhappy,
longing for the Nameless.
                                        
A frog floating
in the drugstore jar:
summer rain on grey pavements.
        (after Shiki)
                                        
On the porch
in my shorts;
auto lights in the rain.
                                        
Another year
has past-the world
is no different.
                                        
The first thing I looked for
in my old garden was
The Cherry Tree.
                                        
My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.
                                        
My early journal:
the first thing I found
in my old desk.
                                        
My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.
                                        
I quit shaving
but the eyes that glanced at me
remained in the mirror.
                                        
The madman
emerges from the movies:
the street at lunchtime.
                                        
Cities of boys
are in their graves,
and in this town...
                                        
Lying on my side
in the void:
the breath in my nose.
                                        
On the fifteenth floor
the dog chews a bone-
Screech of taxicabs.
                                        
A hardon in New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.
                                        
The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.

[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H.
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]

First of all, congratulations.
You are alive and able
to read these words of mine
and that in itself is no small feat.
I feel as if people these days
do not recognize
that life is a great accomplishment.
So to you I acknowledge your due credit
and I celebrate you. Cheers.
I write this at 4 am
with a tall glass of cold coffee
and the intent of convincing you
that you are not insignificant.
Think back to the history
of our own terra firma:
there have been countless species
that once roamed here,
empires have come and gone,
inventions have been made obsolete,
attacks and raids and mutinies
have littered our history.
You have survived all of it.
Think about it.
If everything in the universe didn’t happen
exactly like it already has,
then everything would be different
and maybe you wouldn’t be reading this
but you are.
You are the perfect result
of all your ancestors
surviving through the horrors
of Earth’s past.
You are an arrangement
of old stardust and new hope
and with every sunrise you see,
or every breath you take
you’ve set a new record
and I challenge you
to always
break it again.