someday my house will fall down.
it was never my home

someday my city will burn.
and that's okay

someday my best friend will betray me.
people change

nothing ever stays the same, nothing is forever.

the world is a sandcastle

You'll go through this world
in search of a lover that
you will never find

5:48 PM
10/8/21

Loving me is like
watering a sunflower
but without the sun

12:21 AM
9/8/21

High rises burst from soft Earth’s flesh

Was it even ready for us?

From an extraterrestrial’s perspective we’re a disease upon this gentle cerulean Elysium

I’m living in the mouth of duality

I hear it speak as I leave my block and give a peace sign to the abandoned residences in progress

On the block I currently live, the sidewalk is cracked into drunken mazes and yet

                            Directly across, the neighbors stand upon freshly minted asphalt and into a metropolitan construct made for the modern brain: built in amenities, contemporary textiles and garage parking

Are we next?

To be bought and sold, if so, can we at least have a plan for the residents?

Will tenants be invited to the newborn paradise? We have the budget to feed cement trucks faster than hungry mouths. It’s become a bad habit

yet I sit by the man-made imperfections

hoping someone cares enough to drip their Eden into the palms of my neighbors

If time will tell I’ve been getting quite the silent treatment

Travel a little deeper and….

Cosmopolitan crossroads coexist with beggars and lost folk….

Since when was the speech divided between affluent and broke?

"IDK?" The duality replies

I thought you’d say that.

watch over the colony
shedding their lives
to pay for a lend

cover your ears
don't humor the calls
but cully the fear

"please, we are freezing
there's not enough food
our children are ill"

hush little ones
your leaders have failed
shame on the lot

this is your trial
and We are the judges
sitting on hands

This little world is like most worlds
Throughout the Cosmos.
Here the sun never moves
From its place in the sky:
Seemingly endless morning or eve,
Take your choice.

No concept of time.
No seasons.
Nothing to show the passing of the years.
Just that sun.
Moons optional.

The plants are black
Under a dark red sky
All sombre
All still
Apart from the odd cold wind
From this planet’s “Dark Side”.

For, like most planets,
This world resides in the Goldilocks Zone
Of a Red Dwarf Star
A zone where water may flow
Under the glow of a star
Like the vast majority of stars
Throughout the universe.

This world’s residents might well look out
Into space
With envy at our golden sun
With its blue Earth
Adorned with a coat of green
And its seasons
And days and nights.

They may learn from us about time
About our freedom to roam a long way
Without meeting tropical desert
And eternal frost on the dark side.

They may gasp in wonder
At this Paradise of ours
As they ponder their black grass
And hide from solar flares.
No respite from that relentless red sun,
No sense of time
Apart from monotony.

And they might wonder at us,
As we fail to care
For our glorious world
As it basks in our golden sun.

Paul Butters

© PB 28\7\2001.

Sometimes all you need
is the same warmth in the hug you gave
the same care you shown on someone
same words you said to give strength
the same consolation you made

Sometimes all you need
is to get the same thing you gave
to someone on someday
which could make heart a better thing to have
and earth a better place to live....

Here among the trees
leaves, birds and bees
breathing in summer air
the sun embraces me
into its life-giving energy
I feel loved
and part of the great mystery
each day is a homecoming.

Here I can just be me
fearing no judgement
or condemnation for my sins
but pure acceptance
and bliss.

This day, each day
is my birth day.