Welcome to the Timeless Zone,
Vast as space and timeless as infinity.
A surreal dimension
Located somewhere between
A normal New Year 2020
And the imagined end
Of the Coronavirus Lockdown.

A dimension of sight, sound and mind
Taking us from the pit of superstition and fear,
To the sunlight of scientific knowledge.

The days pass endlessly
As we look for something to do
Again and again.
No meetings to go to,
Our year-planners and diaries
Consigned to being buried in dust.

Here we sit
In twilight:
Idly watching TV
Or catching up on household chores.
We take a daily walk
Even jog
And occasionally pop to the shops.

Shops that is, where you have to follow the arrows
Keep in your own little zone
Do Not Pass Go
Go straight to Jail –
I mean The Counter:
Once you have followed the maze
Of often empty shelves
Ransacked by Panic Buyers.

And at the counter you are served
By workers in gloves and plastic visors.
You must stay behind that line!

But mainly we sit like zombies,
Passing away the time.
At least the pressure is off:
Nowhere to go
Nothing to do.

But look!
A sign up ahead.
Maybe a crossing.
I hope it says
“The End”.

Paul Butters

© PB 19\4\2020. With due credit to “The Twilight Zone” TV series.

Sleeves worn by broken trees-
I repeat
As the world goes on in glee
Defeat
No less a somber fellow
Borrow now he borrows

And burrows into your cotton cave-
A man
With a fluid feeling he misunderstands
Dead land
Where pain is of no mention
Tension here there tension

Indentations and stipulations on the seed of a neutered soul-
We must
And you lose or have lost it as you taste the cavernous hole
Of trust
Ribald fellow your weather betrays you it hangs your skull
On a lacking cloud that paints your spindly skin so dull

Gather what you must in the pool of shallow loving and shame-
No spine
As eminence confounds you and status escapes your stolen name
You shine
With the charms of dead brothers and the cruelty of a mother
Should you seek the soil now know that none will be bothered

Epitaph of viscous fellow
Of whom I knew well without asking
And befriended while basking
In his whiskey nozzle chin
Milking his Acadian shin

Suffice it to say
How aroused was I!
To pet this neutered butterfly
His legs a stiff boulder
Caressed by petaled shoulders

Thick, incumbent man
Dream yourself a body
Where you are all but folly
And laugh at the notion
Of your ceaseless implosions

surrealism
a reality that is augmented, in some way bizarre
out of place but comprehensible
momentarily you're laughing in a chapter of a novel,
sipping wine in a short film,
dancing with your loved one through your imagination
somehow you see the world from such a distance, from the outside
and
in that split second of 'what the hell am I doing'

you just have to smile and move on.

Confession
by Michael R. Burch

What shall I say to you, to confess,
words? Words that can never express
anything close to what I feel?

For words that seem tangible, real,
when I think them
become vaguely surreal when I put ink to them.

And words that I thought that I knew,
like "love" and "devotion"
never ring true.

While "passion"
sounds strangely like the latest fashion
or a perfume.

NOTE: At the time I wrote this poem, a perfume called Passion was in fashion. Keywords/Tags: confession, confess, words, tangible, real, surreal, feelings, love, devotion, passion, perfume, fashion, false advertising, hype

There, the caldera bevelled
In the spitting image of her bell
Looking shy above the shore
Was the essence of her smell
Liquids sharp, naked harp
A catamite in my succor
Graceless heave, tender sleeve
Pearly trailing tail

Entwine, surrender, entwine, surrender
Scintillating boy or throbbing girl

In new moments, waves collapsed
Ink lashed on our toothless gaps
A monkey washed, motions high
Pink shores creased, began to cry
Swelling up like a storm
Smells of Eden, the baby is warm
In the cool flame which sits down still
As it marvels at the hole that it filled
Overlapping with her blue commotion
Like two hills on a vicious plane
Eunoia sighs in consummated sky
They curled deep inside
The cavity of their hands

As vesper came, they awoke with no name
But there was something on their tongues