Bruised and battered egos:
Retaliations –
Flaming tornadoes spiral up to stormy skies.
Mixed metaphors of caviar and custard
Maelstrom mightily around the mountains of Hell.

Trolling is appalling
And flaming burns.

Let go of that ego
Is my advice.

Be humble from the start.
No-one is great enough
To be beyond reproach
Or criticism.

Who cares how good or otherwise I am?
Who cares what anyone says
About my work?

I am what I am,
End of story.
To Describe what I am is fine:
See those metres, verses, rhymes
And metaphors.
Dismantle me if you wish,
But (please) put me back together.

No-one should stand in judgement,
Except maybe God,
With His bright wide wings.

So stop the abuse,
And sourceless insults.
Cease the condemnation,
Or stand to be IGNORED.

Paul Butters

Sitting in place, watching for each breath to follow. Sitting in place while the pulse of the universe passed through, washing over me like a quilted array of colorful threads.

Waiting, resisting any urge to categorize it while breathing…..

From here to vapor clouds of yellow-green shapes, familiar and yet strikingly new and delightfully unique; letting go of any hold on my place, sitting in place.

Complete stillness in unison with an amplified propulsion of movement, surging through my body while the crafted, colorful texture buffets any notion that it could ever stop.

The fabric woven from strands of green, red, rainbow hues, standing and waving but endless; recognizing its elusive presence. Here, then gone, new forms and ideas.

There, but whipped away in a reality of thought; throbbing back to a joyous cacophony of brilliant cobalt spots melding into pools of glaze and meandering laughter. Rich with a deep knowledge of comfort and creation.

Rolling conveyors of electrified strands in textile grids, carrying me through existence; not away but throughout. Not alone but connected in a field of saturated love and reaffirming energy. Beckoning to participate in a communal array of shared newness and fascinated creativity.

Beating, pulsating, reverberating through my being; lifting and transporting from here to here. Flashing, stunning, gripping yet gently releasing me to a river-stream of floating and mellow current.

Elusive to comprehend yet immediately sure. Breathing with a singular rhythm but bombarded with a magnanimous abundance of photons, blasting through into an ambling state. Smiling, soothing, mirthful but astoundingly reassuring and irrevocably present.

Sitting in place, wanting to stay and receive while being pulled to a new place of possibility and self-perpetuation.

Sitting in place in the middle of nothing. Delirious.

There’s a group called “Madness”,
Play a thing called “Ska”.
Though their music’s jerky,
Suggsy is a star.
Started in the seventies,
Still are going strong.
Suggs is their lead singer,
They just can't go wrong.

Would you Adam and Eve it,
That they done so well.
If you do not like them,
You can go to Hell.

They had fifteen top tens,
In their fine career.
Cheer them on I tell you,
I’ll just have a beer.

This poem’s written in their style,
That you must have seen.
If you hadn’t noticed,
Just where have you been?

Saw them on the telly,
Just the other day.
Was a golden oldie,
Hip hip, hip, hurray!

Oh where is that policeman,
To make that cardiac arrest?
Oh I’d better not hurry,
Being peaceful is the best.

Paul Butters

An Irish couple buy some fertilised duck eggs and they hatch.
But then they’re missing!
The cat is licking her lips.
Oh No!
They follow the cat to her snug in the barn.
She too has given birth.
Snuggled beneath the cat’s protective paws
Are suckling kittens and DUCKLINGS!

Had those dear ducklings hatched an hour earlier
Or later
They would have been cat food.
But around the birthing time Missus Cat was only a Mother,
Mothering anything that moved.

Mother Nature breeds such Motherly instincts.
A thing of Wonder.
A story that happens to be True.

Since then those ducks grew up
But still followed their “Mother”
Everywhere she went (within reason).
An unshakeable bond,
Lasting for ever.

Paul Butters

When slapped by raving rants
Or flamed with insults.
When slurred by sarcastic sneers.
I know your blood will boil,
And someone will say,
“Are you going to stand for that?”

Ignore that person.
Calm yourself.
Smile (if face to face)
Or take up Poker Mode.
Show annoyance and the enemy has scored.
Do not respond with anger.

If appropriate, try to reason with him, her or them.
Should they not reason, say no more.
Turn it into a joke whenever you can,
Even belittling yourself in an ironic way.

Never retaliate in kind.
Never feed the flamers and trolls,
Either online or in real life.

I see around me arguments go on
And on and on and on…
When will the listen?
Don’t feed the trolls!
How many times must folk be told?
When under attack
That old cliché applies:
Silence is Golden
(And so Powerful).

Paul Butters

Sunshine!
Life’s lingering flashlight.
Too bright to stare at the sun.
Don’t stay out in it too long.
Suffocating heat sometimes.
My porch gets like a baking oven.
Get burnt and it will peel your skin.

Visions of desert dunes,
Camel trails:
A searing sun that sends you delirious,
Mirage-seas shimmering hypnotically above the sands.

I love the sun.
My memories of buckets and spades,
Golden sandcastles along the esplanades.
Delicious ice-cream.
A cooling breeze.
Grass and pollen
Making you sneeze.

A mini-heatwave we have now,
But storms will come
Over that brow.

British weather I have to say:
Sunshine now
For which we’ll pay.

Paul Butters

“Nothing” is so hard to imagine,
For even empty space is something.
Nothing means “no thing”,
Which means it cannot exist
Without Existence.

There must be Something
For there to be a Nothing.
And then we have the anomaly
Of sub-atomic particles
Winking in and out of existence:
Something then nothing then something then…

We are partly made of such particles,
So we too are winking……

The wonder of it all, of course,
Is that I sit here
Scratching my head about “Nothing”,
A sentient being trying to make sense
Of the miracle that is Life.

Paul Butters