Let self-esteem make you beam.
Make thick-skin your fort.
Have Belief in every dream
And hold that Positive Thought.

Paul Butters

I’m a geographer who doesn’t much like to travel,
A writer who reads slow,
Artistic scientist,
With not a lot to show.

An enigmatic person
With strengths and foibles too.
For I am only human,
Very much like you.

A historian with a bad memory,
That just sums me up.
I have my limitations,
Yet still a half-full cup.

I may be self-effacing,
But have the strength to be honest.
I’ll get there in the end,
To fulfil what I’ve promised.

I know that isn’t a lot,
But I do have my talents.
When all is said and done,
My books do more or less balance.

I’m happy with myself I have to say,
So if you are a critic
Get on your way.

Paul Butters

Dilly dally ****
Ranieri has now gone.
Sacked by the Leicester board:
Watch them wield that deadly sword.

He won the league last year,
Then made Leicester disappear.
Should have been given a chance
To win the Relegation Dance.

Vardy grabs an away goal at Seville
Then next news the manager is nil.
It was a very nasty shock,
So early in the turning of the clock.

Ungrateful and disloyal too,
Those owners haven’t got a clue.
Hard-nosed business it may be,
Whatever happened to that word “We”?

They should have built a statue in Claudio’s name:
He’ll still be blessed with endless fame.
I’ll leave you with this sorry thought:
Football’s no longer a proper sport.

Paul Butters

the other day
I occupied a chair
at a sidewalk café
watching the vanity fair of the quotidian
float by in quickly changing apparitions

an endless flow of different ages, nations, fashions,
skin colors, miens, ****** expressions, postures & gaits
kept passing through  my field of vision

it made me wonder why
some people get so furious
when they  just hear about
    not even meet
    the ‘others’ different from themselves
that they start dropping  bombs and shooting rockets

I think they rather should be curious
and eager to discover
how the immense variety of humankind
can help expand a locally grown mind

and recognize
that we are all of the same kind

Human skin pigment ranges from pale yellow, cream, pink to dark brown.
There is no black or white.
Some African tribes are charcoal grey, but not black.
There is but one race, the human race.
Beware anything that Divides us.
We must Unite for the Common Good.
Welcome to Planet Paul.

The fictional “Prisoner” of the sixties said,
“I am not a number, I am a person.”
He also claimed he was a “free man”.
He shouted defiantly that he would not be pushed,
Filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed
Or numbered.

I couldn’t agree more.
Nor will I be labelled or classified.
“My life is my own”.
I’m an individual human being.
Not Working or Middle Class,
Nor white nor religious nor atheist,
Nor racist, sexist, feminist, chauvinist
No Tory, Liberal. Labourite, Corbynista,
Remainer, Brexiteer, Remainiac, Remoaner
Or whatever.
I don’t do labels.

We are each born as single living entities,
Without asking to be who we are.
All in the same “boat”:
A tiny planet on the far edge
Of a spiral galaxy.

My bowels work like everyone else’s.
I belch and ****.
From time to time I’m ill
Or injured.
A man of many moods.
I’ll live and die like everyone else.
For the bottom line is,
We need to Unite,
As We are All the Same.

Paul Butters

I wonder if I can write a poem with two voices?
Don’t know mate, maybe you can.
Who the hell are you?
I’m your second voice, you muppet.
Ah. But will they be able to tell?
Well, skim readers might miss it.
Oh.
But if they read “vocally” like you do,
It should be okay.
What, even when I go
Onto a new line?
Reckon so, just about. In any case,
Some websites will format it differently,
But we’ll get away with it.

Is it still poetry though?
Could be, mate.
Really?
Well, it depends on the wording I guess.
So we need some flowery language?
Yes, like the dogs of war are gathering,
As two adversaries square up,
For gladiatorial combat.

MMM. Well, I’d prefer to write things like:
The sun is streaming over snow-capped mountains,
To greet the summer
As we awaken from our wintry slumbers.
That’s okay too mate: it’s all poetry.

But should I really be seen,
Talking to myself?
They know you’re mad already, friend,
No worries there.
That’s okay then:
Let’s get this thing posted.
Yes, go ahead.

Paul Butters