Shakespeare pondered names,
We are all given names at our birth;
Some are well-placed, others unknown and ill-fitted.
We spend our teenage years trying on new names, seeing if they fit, throwing them away when they don’t.
Movie stars and musicians shorten their names; Madonna, Oprah, Prince, Beyonce and Drey.
YouTube celebrities create their fame,
Based on their ordinary life.
We, who watch on, add to the myriad of followers,
Playing into their game, adoring their name.
But have we pondered the power of names, for our good?
When we speak, are we breathing life,
Or simply just air?
How can we grasp the life in words?
How can we live out from our true names?

demon in the bathroom mirror
last rock of crystal went missing
bulging eyes in my reflection
I didn’t like that
i couldn’t find crystal but i don’t ask
those guys actually saved my life.
two hours to billings, montana and the
prairie grass glistened in the
last minute Sunday morning sunlight
thanksgiving day drive.

designer machete and the wineberries
broken shabbat demarcation line
and i tried yet again to perform a task
to completion without getting distracted
screaming from the bathroom

‘i can’t hit a vein! I can’t hit a vein!’
water in the rig
miss crystal swimming in mine
Christ in the Cosmos
two plantains on the kitchen island in
a town house on west orange.
no man is an island
but I pretended that i was so
i could finally climb the double helix home.

i  can’t be creative if i’m always in
a mad rush.
‘Prove to me your value! Justify your being here,
can you see me? Why can’t anyone see me?
how about now?’
tongue caught in a snare
pestilence in the mason jar
smoked paprika in the finish
water in the rig
‘Jordan? Was there even anything in here?’

i used to lay prostrate on the
couch
ad infinitum.
one thing they don’t tell you is that when
you’re dope sick you have to take
a giant **** about every five minutes.
the free cable in the apartment complex
actually saved my life.
furniture - mid century modern -
had to let it go.
hadn’t really listened to music in 18 months
besides pop country radio stations
‘i got that summertime, summertime sadness’
ad infinitum.
somehow I had decent pair of headphones and
a small, black verizon smartphone circa July 2013.
‘do what you want, what you want with my body…’
Lady Gaga actually saved my life that day.

demon in the ikea medicine cabinet mirror
giant rock of crystal
missing
water in the rig
‘was there even anything in there?!?!?!’
the mirror reflected back to me a stranger’s eyes
mirror is another name for a stranger's eyes.
i tabernacled in the high desert plains,
Sheridan, Wyoming - powder river country.

i felt the God-force emerge yesterday
up and outward from deep within my belly.
but today i’m fussing over straw-men
in plaster-of-paris suits
and i ate tortured beef at a
diner in Leesport, PA
and I can’t turn back into the man I was
no matter how hard I try.

so now I sit before
the most holy apostle St. Jude
located at Our Lady of Fatima Grotto
across the street from Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, PA.
‘The quickest way to Hell are the temptations of the flesh, exclamation point.’
i came here to reclaim my value but
i can’t seem to find it anywhere.

i keep getting flashbacks of the water in the rig
and the screaming from the bathroom and
if i didn’t tell somebody about this i was probably
going to *****.

3 cheers for the Black Madonna and
the big surrender.
i’ve swallowed so many shadows by now
that i don’t recognize myself in the mirror
or in your eyes.
but my body is a christmas tree and
from the branches i hang
plastic tinsel and
crystals and
broken timing chains
and a cedar wood mala.

I see that Christ is always pointing to
his sacred heart
but no one ever told me that
the anahata chakra had a back door.
no wonder sometimes I feel like i’m a
hydrogen bomb welded inside a lead casket.
someone open the ******* door and
let some light in.

the sun doesn’t rise from the west
and there is no rest for the weary and
to this day I act like that wasn’t only
water in the rig.

You're an emerald zipped up
you are like a thousand eyes;
that traverse the Universe ...
you are like stone
made new sand and water.

Grain to Ladder Magda sand
I take you with my arms,
because my tears
reel in your mermaid kisses.

Magda mother you are full;
like a statue of sand,
leave my rib and my hip
to be attached to your zipper.

Where should you be and how are you?
if you are not dressed as a skirt,
all skirt all whole
all mine, without a change,
makes us think Magdalena.

Emerald impregnated in the stone ...
no one will change your world,
since the world grows like the wind;
like the one who catches your nose
like the one that ages your brain
spawned in fields of mist ...

You are wind ... from the high tree,
of the highest in the world,
of emerald paths ...
you are the indifferent wind that carries your weight;
condense your grief ...,
and rush your sweat into the most beautiful sand ...

Hey Magda sweat;
sweat beads raining sand on you,
you don't aged and you don't die ...
Well you and heaven
they are a poetry family
that pierce your eyes and mine,
in the conquest of having you Magdalena ...

desperatus, credere potes
mortuus, vivere potes

devoted to no God, except those that resemble me
i place each of my egos on the altar, and try to forgive myself

there rests a serpent corpse:
he began to writhe under my woes,
now his callous flesh chips away akin to an ancient statue
what's it like to no longer feel?

all existence is to exist, to exist is to procreate
vital enough to let sin seep into the soul
it is under that philosophy that mitosis cocoons my being
regenrate, rebirth, and rejoice!

I AM:
everyone you've come to love,
i am what you seek in the rest

i am each and every phantom that has glided through you and left traces of immortality, fused to the nerve and bone marrow

desperatus, credere potes
dortuus, vivere potes

I once read a poem,
About a god, swan and woman,
And thought about
The Annunciation;
A dove descended,
From position of power.
With no proposition,
But an edict in it's beak;
Flapped naked,
Before the deed.
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb...
She heard.
No... No... No...
Can we talk.

He’s a material man
On a material planet.
Gobbles up money like a gannet.

Seeking status and promotion,
Upwardly mobile is his motion.
At his side is Madonna’s Girl,
In for a diamond, in for a pearl.

This poor creature has no soul,
Making a fortune his only goal.
Grandeur or Greatness is his God,
For the beauty of Nature he don’t give a sod.

This man doesn’t know what he is missing,
Life’s simple pleasures and Love’s real kissing.

Who really needs all those houses and cars,
Or getting seen in swanky bars?
What’s so fine about a designer label?
We seem to have built our Tower of Babel.

This man will be deaf to these words of mine.
The only mine HE wants, is a glittering Gold Mine.
Humanity divided into Rich and Poor,
Anyone sensible knows the score.

Nations chasing seas of oil,
While back at home the slaves they toil.
Waging wars for piles of money,
Everyone knows it isn’t funny.

Any hope for Material Man?
Unless he changes, he’s down the pan.
Please sir will you open your eyes?
Only Love is loved by the wise.

Paul Butters

Gazing memories,  searching clues
Not that kind of girl..
But you can turn me into the impossible
The impossible lover
And the beautiful pain
The strength i never thought i had
With the promise of happily ever after ♡