If you seek me, I will always hide,
if you chase, me I will always run,
if you hit me, I will always fight,
if you turn out the light, I'll be the sun

Old age has its  merits
silent and mellow
youth was boastful of its high-point
but only folly did it show

life is the progression
of seasons-- time has to flow
let's live with no regret
nothing is worth the throe of woe.

I'm out there in the ocean
And I'm  sailing on the blue
I'm not really worried
Where I'm heading too.
The storms can be very fierce
And the waves they can rise high
I'm not all that bothered
And I'll tell you the reason why.
Because I'm out there in the ocean
And I'm  sailing on the blue
It's really so amazing
What the imagination it can do.

With life
we are intimate
whether we live
in adoration or hate

sometimes a friendly hand
it stretches out
other times it chides
casting its every doubt

with life
we are allied
there's no escape
nowhere to hide

still I'll stand
on my chosen side
I'll learn to understand
in unswerving faith abide.

I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

I tried to write a sonnet once
But only wrote twelve lines.
With number I am ever the dunce,
Make errors of all kinds.
Ten syllables is what’s required
Repeated fourteen times.
It makes me oh so very tired,
Before I find those rhymes.
And now I need a turning point,
A solution to the problem.
It’s time for me to rock this joint
From Cleethorpes up to Rotherham.
It looks contrived does each old poem,
So back to the drawing board I am going.

Paul Butters

I feel that if I let go of you
I will collapse into myself
like a dying star

A sea of foliage girds our garden round,
But not a sea of dull unvaried green,
Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen;
The light-green graceful tamarinds abound
Amid the mango clumps of green profound,
And palms arise, like pillars gray, between;
And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean,
Red—red, and startling like a trumpet's sound.
But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges
Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon
Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes
Into a cup of silver. One might swoon
Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze
On a primeval Eden, in amaze.