i have resolved
to let these moments stab me,
teach me, by reaching my core
and harming me.
it will carve me into something
daring and emboldened;
perhaps i will be smelted,
reforged--
still stronger all the same,
especially without you.

I've drank all my tea,
not quite finished my ****,
As I bathe in the sun all day long.
I keep my mind off of time,
and dream times on my side,
hoping to hear a sweet song.
Somday it will come, and the song
will be sung.
All my wine drunken up like the tea.

Everyday is like magic here,
lost in wonderland...
Fields of gold..
castles made of sand

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