The sky is an artistic graveyard.

Many a hero and many a fool have come to their fate in its wave-driven clutches.

The number of syllables required to storybook danger is as dense as ozone.

The orange layer—a warning sign, posted by the forebearers of fun, who were categorically undone by the very forces they worshipped.

Birds no better than to fly at such temperamental altitudes.

But the dream will die if we don't try.

And so we hoist our ambition like a kite, hoping to stay aloft long enough to discover something more about ourselves.

Deep in the void, where light is scarce,
devoid of life and sound
The remnants of a fallen star
fall to an endless ground.

Until they slowly form anew
by force of Newton's formula
Fantastic clouds of gas and dust
in green and red and pink and blue,
known to us as nebula.

Before our eyes, they grow in size,
take shape, and with elation
we're witnessing a cosmic birth –
The Pillars of Creation.

They tower over the abyss,
a glowing trinity
Amidst the universal mist
of darkness and infinity.

Until they finally collapse
and under heat and pressure form
A self-sustaining plasma core
and thus, anew, a star is born.

your heart will not fail in space
it will be an object of its own mass
and gravity
no longer will there be a throttle in its vessels
and asynchronicity in its rhythms—
the beats, oh, the beats
your heart, when it is in space, will only wait
for an entity
to be jettisoned from a shuttle

my oxygen is running low
i love you to your heart and never back

Lines on the page are like my personal prison bars;
Where all my arresting thoughts are locked away.
Ink and me, worn and fading
As each calendar day is torn,
Crumpled and forgotten.

Like a black hole, my journal entraps the light;
The turning of a page only paints,
An image of one perpetually falling.
Spiraling endlessly towards a center
I will fall short of reaching.

On the eve of twenty-twenty-two
We are ready to celebrate
Another New Year.

But throughout The Milky Way,
Eighty five percent of stars are red dwarves
Which nestle worlds that are tidally locked.

Such planets have no days or seasons
Nothing to show the passage of Time.
Half of each world faces its sun,
And the other half remains in eternal night.
For anyone on the ground
The sun never moves across the sky.
It stays perfectly still.
Always midday, twilight or whatever.

Here there is no New Year.
Or Christmas
Or Winter or Summer Solstice
Or Seasons.
Not even a single Day.
Imagine living like that.

Time happens
But the measurement of Time
Is manufactured
By Mankind.
Let’s not forget that
As we celebrate
And as we navigate
Our Days throughout The Year.

Paul Butters

© PB 31\12\2021.

Some insist they do not want to read about Space,
One of my favourite things.
They would rather I spoke
About what’s going down on Terra firma.

But to them I say
That there are billions of galaxies,
Stars and planets out there.
So the odds are that
There are countless worlds just like Earth.

Right now,
On such an “Earth”
There may well be
People just like us.
They might look different
But still be sentient beings
Eating and drinking
Even going to the pub,
Watching soaps and sport on their version of TV
Squabbling over who will tidy up today...
Or debating issues on Social Media.

They might be worried about global warming,
Or suffering some Pandemic,
Even waging interminable wars,
Just like us.

For, when all is said and done,
Our very own Earth is just like the rest:
A little blue world
Lost in the blackness of Space.

Indeed, we too are out “In Deep Space”
Every bit as much
As all those other Earths.

Paul Butters

© PB 26\12\2021.

for you to be
the blooming pink lotus,
i’ll be the marshy terrain unseen.

for you to be
the shimmering sagittarian star,
i’ll be the december night sky.

for you to be
the orange tip butterfly,
i’ll be the feather for your landing.

but when i burn
in that funeral pyre of time,
will you even bother to shed a tear?

© 2021