Lying embedded in velvet gloom and night,
You and I are gazing up the northern hemisphere.
Within the sea of darkness is the stars' stained light.

Hidden inside the fabric of interstellar space,
Might be a kind of universal truth
That answers all the questions of human race.

Sensing the pull of the universe
I feel like we're lost between the infinite vastness
That none of us could ever dream to traverse.

Suddenly you get up on your knees -
Head in the sky and feet on the ground.
“Perhaps the stars only made us feel lost,
because we both wanted to be found.”

A good man is soon out of company.

The woman he lives with
believes he is a fool
and having seen no sign of his cure
she feels insecure.

He is weak and so acts good,
she rues in bitter mood.

Goodness buys him no good place anywhere.

People interpret his grace his kindness
as his meekness.

He leaves his seat for others
but is never offered a seat
with sellers he is nice
but parts paying the worst price
being never vocal with claim
favors seldom find his name.

Yet in goodness only
his heart loves to dwell
and on the humble bed
he sleeps well.

that i've been reading your poetry
(on the new front page)
and,

I ******* love
your words; your worlds;
it's like i'm,
    there. right there,
with you.

you see, i didn't do what you do--
         write my story aloud
--when i was fifteen, or even twenty-two

just an inch off the ground
                        i confided in clouds
stayed lost (was a puff too proud)

that was then, sure, but even today
   (it's 11:11, now)
putting any of it down
committing to this word, not that
this sentiment,
      not that
this meaning
       (and not simultaneously that)
              is walking through fire

and so, for leading the way
           let me just say,
                       i love you

and please,
don't ever stop.

Long after I’ve gone –
As if that wasn’t bad enough –
Billions of years from now
The Earth will be engulfed by the sun
Which by then will be a red giant.
If not swallowed, then badly scorched.
Hopefully “We” will escape before then
With all our “Goods”.

But Trillions of years later
There surely will be no escape
When The Universe falls apart completely.
For it will thin into almost Nothing:
Frozen emptiness.
All our history, art, literature
Forgotten.
Death of Deaths.

No more Shakespeare, Beethoven, Einstein, Curie.
No Britain, America, World.
No Human Race.
Is there any hope of salvation?
Nothing in the Material World it seems.
Only, perhaps, a “Spiritual Solution”.

Paul Butters

© PB 29\12\2017.