Love and practicality
A ladder leading into a tumbling dryer
Dangerous and blurred

Flowers with roots to hidden caves,
Caves known as the "heart and soul,”
Which we keep hidden

A tightripe balanced over the sea,
Inescapable and thrilling

I left the coast
on a tiny blue and red rowing boat
I left my shoes on the pier
and jumped right in

I row to a beach and look along it
in moonlight
searching for those certain blue eyes
that I only half-remember
but all I see is strangers staring,
why are they sunbathing at night?

I give up, row back to land
the only sound is me pushing water
I struggle up the rungs of the ladder

lose my footing
fall
then suddenly
I don't know
whether I made it up the ladder at all

The generations rumble on,
I know no reason why.
We build our countless tower-blocks,
Reaching to the sky.

Jacob is our newest one.
He’s only two years old.
Who knows what things he’s going to see?
Great nephew who’ll have…great stories to be told.

We saw men land upon The Moon,
For him it will be Mars.
His kids may go much further,
Even to the Stars.

He’s such a cheery chappie,
Chapman his mum’s maiden name!
I hope he will stay cheerful,
Though Life’s a funny old game.

I hope the world gets better,
For him and all his peers.
I’m sure he’ll be a pacesetter,
And not too many tears.

So here’s to futures bright,
For Jacob and the rest.
May there always be plenty of light,
Let’s wish them all the best.

Paul Butters

Life.
A slide.
Long travel up.
Shortest travel to fall.
You start over again quickly.
Coming only to the same end.
Striving to get to the tippy top.
But only ending to begin again and again.
Trying best to impress people who really don't care.
Always trying to climb the ladder to fall down again.

The never-ending ladder
and the ground that always grows
The cloud that always rises
and the climb that never slows

The ladder,

The one I’m forced to climb.

A lack of friction, I seem to find,

As I take the rung into my fingers.

And the vertigo sensation lingers.

I know my lesson,

Why should I persist?

Brace my feet, step up, and

Slip.

The question:

Should I give up

And fall regardless?

Or continue

And say I tried this?

With this knowledge, then,

What good is

The latter?