This muggy, sultry sun is no fun:
Longest sustained heatwave for over forty years.
Suffocating Sahara with Death Valley cracks
In the dry arid soil.

My electric fan shattered with a power surge
Into fragmented plastic shards.
I so miss it now.
It’s oppressively tropical,
With volcanic heat
And Pressure bearing down on us.
The clammy mugginess of a sauna.
Not the clean dry air you find abroad,
Yet still that remorseless torrid scorching,
Roasting and toasting.
Just too much.

Hot air clothed in humid moisture,
Stuffy and sweaty,
Steaming to a haze
And later
Thunder storms.

I long for a cool brew
To freeze my throat
And quench my raging thirst:
Ice cool, ice cool, ice cool.
I’m sure not talking
Of tea.

Paul Butters

© PB 6\8\2018.

i wake to
the rhythm of the birds.
its a day ill live
and forget.
it starts with
grey rain but i have
nothing to do
other than drink
with friends
so what does it matter.

i do not walk alone.
i am not drunk
i can still see the work.
there is real forgetting
going on, and i am sleeping
there. i have made
my peace with battles.
just let me drink
with friends.

i end in bed,
shaking to old wounds.
a creature from the
water, i cant swim
so i cant be hurt. it saves
lives and i need saving.
only a match that
perfect could end
so poorly.

To be poured like a drink.
The bubbles fizz.
Gathered around, enriched in desire.
To quench the pursuit of pleasure.
Snapping the top proceeding to pour.
Cold to taste.
This was the comfort I felt surrounded
in her arms.
A glass seen half full continuing to pour.
Filling the space around.
Drowning just beneath the rim of glass.
An extension of myself caught in great advantage.
The settlement before the first sip.
Compensating the thrill of being swallowed whole.
In terms of affection.
It was a hug I'd never forget.
A thought that leads into physical manifestation.
The bliss of the moment,
The moment her lips pop at the taste.
Bubbles fizz crackling in the midst of excitement.
Tickling her nose.
The memory of how things were.
Drunk until nothing is left
The reality of how things really are

Who’s eyeing up is lurking deep.
Every star looks down,
wants to drop in it and swim
deep down the burrowed stream,
that deathless ab-e-hayath
every king wants to drink.

Baby I just wanna get drunk
A little something to get me outta this funk
Maybe get some smoke into these lungs
Laugh at terrible jokes and finger guns
Play some old records that I hate
While you tell me why they’re so great
Get freaked out at how fast time goes
I’ll fall asleep on the floor in my clothes
Just a chilled night, nothing crazy
I just wanna get drunk with you baby

sometimes it’s too hard to think, maybe that’s why people drink

I always find myself in moments
balanced poetically between control and chaos
With just one sip tipping me over
until I’m more than tipsy
Falling, but the string is snapping
I cant bounce back
(Stumbling out the door
I need to get away
He can’t see me like this)
And as I hit the floor
A bone-crushing silence
And then my own laughter
Uncontrollable
as I’m writhing there
with my broken stilettos
and black mascara running down
my flushed face, pressed into the pavement.
Yet I still can’t stop laughing,
suddenly finding the trivialities of my own existence so ******* funny.
My sanity is outweighed by the bottles
like rocks on the scale
Rising up in patient stillness
Until I fall, and fail.
He wouldn’t want to catch me
So I catch my breath and stand,
My ripped clothes now revealing dried, caked-on blood
(It matches the lipstick stain, still on my glass)
wounds of doubt and delirious self-indulgence.
Now everyone sees it,
knows my self-inflicted secret,
that I wanted myself to fall-
I’ve grown bored of this balancing act.
I pull my coat a little tighter
So he won’t notice that I ripped myself open
With the drinks he bought me,
and walk back into the bar,
because if I went to sleep now
the loneliness would crush me.
and worst of all,
I might miss the way his voice sparkles
At 4 am.

I take a break from writing,
go to a diner not too far
from my house.

I walk in and grab a
local newspaper and
sit down at the counter.

I order a ham and cheese
sandwich on toasted wheat
and a water.

I open the local newspaper
and start reading.

a man is sitting a couple
seats down on my left
having a cup of coffee
and also reading the
local newspaper.

“everybody’s crazy,” he tells me.

“I guess so,” I tell him without
looking up from my paper.

“must be something in the water,” he tells me.

I just smile and nod.

he finishes his coffee,
folds the newspaper
and tosses it aside,
drops fifty cents on the
counter and walks out.

I finish my meal,
pay and leave a tip,
walk out and leave
to go back home.

while I’m driving
my stomach turns
and bubbles and growls
and then it feels like
my insides drop straight
down and overcrowd
my bowels.

must be something in the water.