MINESTRONE NIGHTS (on the summer of 2018)  
              
Deep in the incubus of fantasy
As torrid painter makes its art
Rips a flash of an epiphany
A plaintive whisper of the heart
Hobgoblin summer full of slobber
Beget febrile reveries unkind
As dance character’s macabre
A three-ring circus in my mind
Each minestrone moldy night
When body craves boreal slumbers
Akin cat on hot tin roof I fight
Dank sog my sleep encumbers
Comes morn aft time eternal
Half charged at start of day
Abscond sodden dreams infernal
Tormenting orb is up to play
I was hot before I even knew
Never really did cool down
Too warm again, for morning dew
Vague slumber’d avec frown
Haven't slept for an age or eon
Cadaver tacky to the tepid touch
Arise, trepid to perspire, like peon
Labour in this broil is just too much

©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)

We looked into the darkness
You said it was bright
I trusted you
And thought myself blind
We stood out in the cold
You complained of the heat
I trusted you
And I removed my jacket
We were submerged in water
You said it was land
I trusted you
And I stopped swimming
Trust is not truth.

Jellyfish clouds in drift,
Their invisible tendrils,
Zappin’ n' trapin’ air,
Leaving the sedentary dead weight,
Directly on my shoulders.

The nostalgic Sahara heat,
Travels through time and space to Ohio,
Where a younger me swam in the,
Not actually cold but cooler pool.
Ten years but two seconds later,
I work there, Date there, Talk there, and eventually
Leave there

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.

the moon
a snake of light coiled up
around a chimney
knows nothing of it
or how my skin could melt
on your fingertips while
you hum my name
I need a drink
so I sit on the edge
lean over the ocean
take a sip of you
your naked soul
watch you wash your car
your green T-shirt clinging
to my eye lashes
soaking wet
for a thousand years or so
the smell of salt and beauty
makes me hungry
so I jump from the highest cliff
into a drawer full of
love letters
lavender, lips & crickets
I swallow you inch by inch
quietly
season after season
slowly
you are now
inside me
in the dark danger is a lullaby
and you smile with your sit belt on
falling asleep
in my sleep
while the night
bends

We sit in this room
across from one another
in silence

I try to look at everything
but you

I feel your eyes on me

I feel them roaming
as if your hands are on my body

how is that even possible

it's as if you're right beside me
grazing your fingers where they please

Your lips following their trail

lingering here and there
exploring every dip and hollow

The room feels so tight
this tension is something I can't explain
this silence so deep

I feel so restless
I want to burn something
break something
move

I chance a glance
and our eyes collide

****

what is this feeling
how can something feel so hot

I try to look away
but I'm frozen

I wait
But your eyes are still on mine

A silent challenge

You get up and leave the room

...

And I follow

Scales on bodies
Of that of farmers
Sun bares no harm,
On swinging charmers
A drop of a bit
Gives no smiles
To the hand that feeds
That walk for many miles
Cracks flap, mudcakes
Steaming heat rise won't stop
Children doing rain dance
While egg fries on roof top
Clear sky, bathes no cloud
Just stroke of heavy rays
Heatwaves tants the skin
Bad are these days...



©sim