The World is ruled
By massive corporations
And nations.
By Trump, Putin and The Queen.

But I say again:
Only I have ownership of My Life.
For I am The King of My Mind
And, from my point of view,
When I die the Universe Ends.

It does not matter to me
That when I go,
Life goes on.
What use is that
If I’m not here
To see it?

Even now
What do I care
About what goes on
In Ivory Towers
And murky corridors of power?

Maybe it’s my Whisky
Or Autism
That informs me I am King.
And yes I’m being self-centred.
In my Matrix I’m “The One”.

But you’ll get no apology
From me.
Yes, I’ll be polite
And try (a bit) to comply
With rules of etiquette.
But don’t be fooled:
My self esteem keeps growing
As I shake off the shackles
Imposed by a society
That seeks to make most people
Little more than
Corporate slaves.

I may appear to be a “nice man”
But underneath that mask
Is a heart of steel.
For I am The King
Of My Life,
On Planet Paul.

Paul Butters

© PB 30\3\2019.

Death, afterlife?
Sorry
But I think we are **ed.

Paul Butters

© PB 25\3\2019.

You can’t beat that musical beat,
From tinkling triangles
To blaring horns.
A quick ditty
Or grand symphony.

Music can mould mountains,
Oceans and plains.
Make you feel any emotion
Or atmosphere.

When songs and poems marry,
Their offspring are awesome:
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality…”
Mercury magic.

Those rhythms run like chugging trains.
They fight pitch battles
Within our brains.

Drums keep beating,
Guitars whine.
Ever repeating
All through time.

Chuck Berry with his rock and roll,
Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul.
Elvis truly was the King,
Want some crooning?
Play some Bing.

Beatles, Queen or Stones,
Who really cares?
Roll over Beethoven
Bach or Lennon
On your dancing squares.

I know that rap can give you the blues,
But there’s so much music
You’ve got plenty to choose.

Musical memories adorn our minds,
Warm associations
Of nostalgic times.

Paul Butters

© PB 4\3\2019. Last stanza added 6\3\19.

In my late teens I would wonder
What is The Purpose of Life?
What should I Value?
What is truly Good?

But now at sixty six it seems so clear:
Life per se is what matters.
The wonderment
Of selves
That know they are selves.
Of sentience married with intelligence.
The miracle we call Life.

At nineteen I said
That the First Priority
Was Survival.
I wrote a thing called “The Bedrock”
To grow this theme.
And what was it that had to survive?
It was living beings
Nurtured by Mother Nature.

I am a “Lifist”
If you will:
Cherishing all that lives.
Humanist Plus
And more than Conservation.
Health and Wellbeing
For The Common Good.
A touch of Socialism
And Equal “Opps”.
I coined the word “Positivism”
To sum it all up.

Is this all poetry?
Maybe not.
But the greatest poem lies all around us:
The very world and universe
In which we live.

Paul Butters

© PB 18\2\2019.

The winter fairy has again knocked on my door with a lovely gift of today
With a little sunshine hue
this morning she arrived with tiny friends
Still sulking in darkness and in my melancholic silence
I got up and tried to peek
A little smile then curved my lips
happily singing their winter songs
on a frail tree branch were birds with tiny feet

The gift of laughter that I heard suddenly gave me hope
Winter is not only a season of gloom, of tears and of despair
Its beauty is also a season for peace,  for thinking and for memories
Because of my new feathered friends
a reminder so I write today
That for any season that we have
to feel untroubled or miserable is our choice to make

Be careful whom you talk to
And what you say,
For things can be twisted
Any which way.

These are troubled times,
That we all know.
It’s oh so hard to tell
Friend from foe.

I love to be open and express my self,
But some things can’t be said: they are not allowed.
We have to stay silent I’m afraid to say,
And be PC to fit in with the crowd.

Oh to be honest
And tell the truth,
Like it was
In the days of my youth.

Paul Butters

© PB 6\2\2019.