I have resigned myself to this;
time stretching onwards a pale weak grey like that of a dove, promising peace
-- sod your peace, after all, heaven is a place where nothing ever happens --
-- heaven is Las Vegas -- everything and nothing all at once,
and around the corner of my hesitation
comes a voice as lifeless and mutilated as the rest of me:
"shut up and live."

I have walked unshoon through dust-choked wastelands
where they strung belief and imagination up
from the flagpoles, by their throats
and burned all our dreams to light up
a night grittier than a mouthful of gravel in a desert.
tracing my tracks and trails by the bloodprints
left by bare soles lacerated by shattered dreams underfoot.
"just shut up and live."

I have dreams, curiosities, wondering too deeply
what the last moment on Earth would be like,
what it would take to breathe through the end
and run face-first into oblivion or whatever's beyond it.
I sicken, and weaken, and wake up gagging on my own sweat
and the echoes of a voice made harsh by dysagapi:
"shut up and live".

It is the habit of the cynical
to believe themselves too smart to be optimistic;

This allows them the privilege of being unhappy,
even when they are right.

You say that all poetry is gobbledygook:
That Art's a waste of time
Elvis was just a Showman
And Freddie Mercury…
(Yes the same first name as you!)
…I’d better not say.

Where is your soul, Philistine Fred?
So many like you around.
Your mind cluttered with clinical facts,
Everything measured
And boxed –
Fastidious and precise.
Emotion killed
By setsquares
Set by Pythagoras
On a geometrical day.

You hate historical dramas
And all things learned.
Admitting any Education
Loses any street cred earned.
Yet you watch hours and hours
Of soaps.

You love supporting football teams
From places you’ve never been near.
But at least you like your pubs
For a lovely pint of beer.

I guess I’ll have to keep trying
To get through to you and your kind.
Yet I know some things ain’t possible
And you may never change your mind.

But yes I’ll keep on trying:
Keep banging out my poems –
Knowing that my pockets
Will never be lined with coins.

I know that you won’t read this,
But I will carry on.
For there are people out there
Who will listen to my song.

Paul Butters

© PB 3\7\2020.

Men?

Hah.

They come to me.
But they never seem to go as easily
as they come to me.
I'm a simple girl.
I want nothing more than to bathe in my solitude.
But these men,
so foolish by nature
they want nothing
more than to claim me.

They threaten my essence.

And so well
I hurt them.
So well I hurt them too - my dear
So well in fact
that they come for seconds.
And when I start hurting them
I can't seem to stop.

I carry their morsels,
their names
in my every stride
in my sway lies their broken hearts.
At night, I lay on a bed of virtuous compliments.
I adorn my flesh with their promises
my skin reeks of their tenderest secrets.
My dress
a construct of their desires alone.
You will hear their fervent pleas
from time to time
concealed so effortlessly beneath my laugh
a soft cackle.

It is true.

I have dulled many lives.
Yet I have never felt more alive.
Because my dear
I’m sure that you too
would agree
I wear them well

les garçons.

Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?

What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

of the dull gray slug
—spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams—

abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,

it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.

One suspects the typical American poetry professor and/or workshop instructor would advise birds to give up singing for mostly inaudible expressions of jaded irony. Keywords/Tags: performing, art, poetry, song, singing, music, irony, cynicism, parodies, dreams, imagination, chrysalis, butterfly, transformation, natural, performance

My whole life I had scoffed at boys gifting girls flowers
The expensive ones, the kind they saved up for
I thought it was incredibly immature to pay for pretty dead things
When the world is in the process of destruction
And the economy is constantly in inflation
It could’ve paid for a lot of things—
A nice meal or even AirPods

It was until I got a girl of my own
Smiling like she’s the sun
Walking around and tugging me along
I suddenly had the urge to get her a 50-dollar bouquet
Or those fancy ones in a box shipped from Dubai
Or a giant teddy bear—Yes!
A giant teddy bear to fill a corner of her room on top of her pile of trash

Suddenly she deserves pretty dead things
Hold onto them as they slowly wilt
I want her to walk around owning a piece of Earth
It could’ve been an animal or a plant
Shiny gems or a worm
But she deserves the brightest crop among the weeds
The purplest shade nature can make
The pinkest rose
The yellowest sunflower

I’m not even one to write a poem either
But somehow I now belong in the stupid group of hopeless romantics
plucking pretty things from Earth
Despite inflation and pragmatism
I guess it says a lot about us humans
Sentimental *****

Rip, rip, rip!
Red glazed paper
Cling, cling, cling!
The falling sugar
Whirr, whirr, whirr!
Grinding of the beans
Stir, stir, stir!
Till the surface gleams
Drip, drip, drip!
Dripping black ocean
Sip, sip, sip!
The bitter decoction

Sweetheart
Ain't it sweet enough
To believe there's someone we're made for
But it's never enough sugar
in that sachet
Why does love last as long as it's paid for?