a melody in
        to another flows
a third
            divine counterpoint

I’ll let you be my prism
I’ll be your muse
Don’t you ever forget
I’ll always love you

I don’t know why they say
“Be careful, they are just words”
What if
Words are all I want from you
Master of mined legends
In this time and place we can no longer be close
I am happy in the company
Of such beautiful words

Vibrantly hazy
lazy
soothingly distructive
source
The inner one
Leaving traces are the best ways
to find your way home

The texture of
My lips

Slur the notes
That drape my hips

Staccato
Across my midline

Crescendo
Look for us

You say that all poetry is gobbledygook:
That Art's a waste of time
Elvis was just a Showman
And Freddie Mercury…
(Yes the same first name as you!)
…I’d better not say.

Where is your soul, Philistine Fred?
So many like you around.
Your mind cluttered with clinical facts,
Everything measured
And boxed –
Fastidious and precise.
Emotion killed
By setsquares
Set by Pythagoras
On a geometrical day.

You hate historical dramas
And all things learned.
Admitting any Education
Loses any street cred earned.
Yet you watch hours and hours
Of soaps.

You love supporting football teams
From places you’ve never been near.
But at least you like your pubs
For a lovely pint of beer.

I guess I’ll have to keep trying
To get through to you and your kind.
Yet I know some things ain’t possible
And you may never change your mind.

But yes I’ll keep on trying:
Keep banging out my poems –
Knowing that my pockets
Will never be lined with coins.

I know that you won’t read this,
But I will carry on.
For there are people out there
Who will listen to my song.

Paul Butters

© PB 3\7\2020.

Dear diary;
there's a musical riot
erupting in my
chest tonight.
My ribs echo
with the sounds of
chaos and harmony.

To Please The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

(for poets who still write musical verse)

To please the poet, words must dance—
staccato, brisk, a two-step:
so!
Or waltz in elegance to time
of music—mild,
adagio.

To please the poet, words must chance
emotion in catharsis—
flame.
Or splash into salt seas, descend
in sheets of silver-shining
rain.

To please the poet, words must prance
and gallop, gambol, revel,
rail.
Or muse upon a moment—mute,
obscure, unsure, imperfect,
pale.

To please the poet, words must sing,
or croak, wart-tongued, imagining.

Originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: musical, poetry, rhythm, rhyme, meter, sing, dance, waltz, emotion, catharsis, passion, music, adagio

You saw it as I did, clear as day:
Orpheus, with his heart on display
Raising his golden voice as if to pray
That Hades would not make his lover stay.

I saw it as you did, on that stage,
Eurydice opposing Hades' rage,
Rallying the dead-eyed workers to engage,
A songbird trying to break free from her cage.

We watched it unfold before our eyes:
Hades penned that fateful compromise,
Persephone, her arms raised to the skies,
Hermes already fearing their demise.

And in those final moments, I was sure
As lovers faced each other on death's door
And went their separate ways to love no more
That I'd never loved you so much before.