would you like a cup of coffee?
would you like that with milk? sugar?
would you like me to be your coffee table?

sometimes i wonder whether i
make you coffee
dust the dustless windowsills
and run water over wet dishes

to justify my being-here
to justify my being
to save me from myself

Wake up and smell the coffee, focus as the pan flips,
Time for the rat race and its monotonal semantics,
Suss out agendas - get ahead of the mind tricks,
Brush over simple truths with pointless lies and politics.

Another year gone - stale memories as the frost licks,
Dignity diminished, allegiance pledged to bosses,
Anticipating failure as you organise your post-its,
Institutionalising life, leaving no room for chances.

Clutching at a purpose yet defeated as the clock ticks,
Finding closeness in distance and solace as the storm hits.

By Arcassin Burnham

Sweet candy perfume lingering.

Crushable purposes only,
Wanting you to just hold me,
You're the only one,
Only one, only one
The only one.

Wonderland in many ways,
Our love flourishes away,
Carrying your books to class , I want you to
have my last name.

The way you kiss, the way you smile,
Is so exquisite,
I need another one in my life, yeah you're,
The only one,
Only one , only one,
The only one,
I haven't had a girl like you in a minute,
My loving could be more than a minute,
I hope you could understand what exactly
I am bringing,
You're the one , sweet candy perfume lingering.

Stormy sand dunes of foaming memories
A dryness palpitating the scorched heart
The thirst waiting in her eyelids, teardrops
An endless desert beckons towards agony
And a violent sun burns her bruised flesh
But to endure it, to suffer worse than death
Can make this mirage of life, meaningful
So that others can one day find its purpose.

-K

ive burned a
lot of bridges
lately...

whether it was
on purpose or
an accident-
i still don’t know

In my late teens I would wonder
What is The Purpose of Life?
What should I Value?
What is truly Good?

But now at sixty six it seems so clear:
Life per se is what matters.
The wonderment
Of selves
That know they are selves.
Of sentience married with intelligence.
The miracle we call Life.

At nineteen I said
That the First Priority
Was Survival.
I wrote a thing called “The Bedrock”
To grow this theme.
And what was it that had to survive?
It was living beings
Nurtured by Mother Nature.

I am a “Lifist”
If you will:
Cherishing all that lives.
Humanist Plus
And more than Conservation.
Health and Wellbeing
For The Common Good.
A touch of Socialism
And Equal “Opps”.
I coined the word “Positivism”
To sum it all up.

Is this all poetry?
Maybe not.
But the greatest poem lies all around us:
The very world and universe
In which we live.

Paul Butters

© PB 18\2\2019.