I was brought up in Western Leeds,
Almost two miles from the nearest cow or sheep.
In sprawling suburbs:
Row after row of smoke stained redbrick slums.
We had our fields:
Jungles of Rose Bay Willow Herb
(Fireweed to the Americans)
On former demolition sites.
Our childhood spears were honed
From fireweed spears.

Our house was in a terrace
On “School Street”,
Where we took baths in the sink
And crept to outside toilets
In the dark of the “back yard”.

Those days were punctuated
By the “Yie Yie” blare
From the local factory siren.
A deafening sound.
And by endless hammering
From the scrapyard nearby.

But we loved our dripping and bread,
And our walks to the sweet shop.
Playing hopscotch on those stone “flags”
Along the sides of the cobbled street
Under old Victorian gas lamps
Straight from Narnia.

I recall crying on our return from the coast
At a dismal scene
Of soot shrouded trains
On tortured railway lines.

But I also feel nostalgia
For those heady days
Of childhood innocence.
Wearing a cardboard box as a space suit,
And running around
During a “New Year’s Revolution”.
Happy Days.

Paul Butters

They say that God is omnipotent,
Omniscient, omnipresent:
All the omnis.

An all-powerful, all seeing, all knowing
All place being.
No pressure then, Mr. or Mrs. God.

Paul Butters

This thing we call the universe reaches out
Beyond the beyond.
The sweeping sky seduces our senses
With shimmering stars.
A mere glimpse
At endless heavens.
Swirling galaxy clusters,
Travelling beyond the speed of light.

Like grains of sand on a surf-kissed beach,
These star-packed galaxies fly forth.
Meanwhile, at sub-atomic level,
Exotic particles wink in and out of existence.

Most stars are red dwarves.
Many harbouring exoplanets
In their Goldilocks Zones.
One-eyed worlds with the same side
Always facing the sun.

On such a world there’s no such thing
As a day.
It’s always the same time
If you stay the same place.
Hot day one side,
Frozen night on the other.
A bright side with black plants
Under a rose tinged white sky.

But there are plenty of golden stars
Just like our sun.
Stars surrounded by rocky earths like ours.

Is our Earth unique?
Does it take a planetary collision
To form an Earth and Moon
Supporting life?
Time may tell.
And if we’re lucky,
We might just live to see it.

Did God create this Universe of ours
Or is it all by chance?
Who knows?
Who cares?
Just enjoy.

Paul Butters

My brother is very lazy.
Every day he drives me crazy.
I love him to bits I'll have you know,
I'll defend him stoutly against any foe.

I've never seen a man so stubborn,
His wife must find him hard to govern.
I still love him, for all his faults,
There's nothing like him
In any bank vaults.

Paul Butters

Mad politicians threaten nuclear war
While madder religious maniacs
Send suicide bombers to **** and destroy.
Bombers brainwashed into believing
That vestal virgins await them in heaven.

Children starve
While adults fight
For bits of land.

A world divided.
Plagued by hate and distrust.
Governments killing their own people
Except when tied by nameless bureaucrats.

Forests and wildlife being cleared away
For the sake of gold or drugs
Or other means of making Money.

It’s a mad, mad world.
In which everyone is born to die.
What use is that?
Perhaps already we are living in
Hell.
Just Saying.

Paul Butters

(C) PB 1\5\2017. 2 new lines added 8\5\17.