I hope you keep the taste of your dreams on your tongue,
When you’re gathering the courage to run towards stormy waters,
And I hope that when you reach the shoreline,
Your unspoken words rest on your eyelids,
So that every time the water burns your eyes,
You find comfort in your heart’s lullabies,
Written for you to keep you warm,
when the thunder shatters your barriers.
I hope you remember all the words we exchanged,
Because I’ve written yours upon my sleeves,
Hoping that you would remember them too.
I hope that when you reach the other side,
You’ll find the colourful remnants of the setting sun,
They’ll wash the lightening away from your eyes,
So that you can see the outline of your shadow,
As you reunite with your past self,
The one that hasn’t forgotten how to dream.

Came to life as an alien,
And my skin palette is broader
try and hold me down while I'm breaking the border
Trumping over these walls, call me a dreamer

You are the contrast between the sun and its midday shadow
The quiet soul with the pulse of a deer caught in headlights
You carry your words in your throat, your thoughts in your heart
You feel like a wrecking ball waiting to be swung
But you are a reckless force, a mountain that never cries

You string the laughs of those closest to you to wear as bracelets in your worst of times
You dwell on the insignificant things because that’s where you divide
You are the east and the west meeting at a central line

You are here in the present surrounded by people
You tell stories and you listen, you laugh and you embrace
But your head is in the clouds somewhere far away
And you look towards the windows to remember who you are
You’re struggling to be present because you’re already somewhere far

Why must the Eternal Dreamer

Seek to sow his golden purpose

In a fickle poem, for a fickle world

Pleading to be a destined grain of late harvest

And not a seed of sand from the desert of abundance

Lost, like every other, in the wind

Drifting, fading, falling

Till only silence, with the lifeless dune

Remains.

Inspiration to the nation
That’s what I’m all about.
Inspiration to the world,
That without a doubt.

I’m a Meerkat teaching the kids to forage
Something much juicier than porridge,
But I show everyone how to dream
Of better pastures
Full of honey and whipped cream.

Meerkats may have lookouts, nannies and fighters
But they are smart little blighters
Capable of vision
In spite of facing derision.

Imagination is the key
To shaking off our shackles
(Whatever they may be)
And running free.

Paul Butters

© PB 4\5\2020.

My brain is a middle school notebook
Every day I write your name inside
With random sketches the cover holds in
For emotions I can’t easily hide

My heart is a jelly pen
A schoolyard craze, of that there’s no doubt
It pins my last name to you in my middle school notebook
And as costly as it is, I pray it won’t run out

I find remnants of the dreamer I used to be in-between the mundane
twelve years old and my eyes had seen more than most will in a lifetime
but I loved with every fiber of my being
I loved the cities I'd never been to and the life I hadn't lived
and all the things I knew I was meant for with the sweetest ignorance for how to get there
you can find me underneath all the evidence of my surviving
my heart just as thirsty as the little ******* her bedroom floor