A season
revise her
that ponders
welcome with
a winning
salute to
vamp her
dress then
tell monologues
that absorb
deeply in
themselves to
what it
will take
to be
a better
anchor woman

After work
I usually go home
to rest my body in a motionlessness.

I'm watching tv
and think how fortunate I am to not to be on the screen. And that this world
is a sad place to be, for you don't suffer yourself anymore,
and you don't suffer seeing others suffering,
doomed to emotionlessness of Twenty First Century.

After work
I'm watching ****. That is my way to bring my dead body to life,
like electric shock for someone who died.
Don't blame me for that.
We all have our own way to survive another day in "paradise".

I'm watching
bodies ******* bodies, and I forget for a while, that I am nobody,
and that body
is all what remained from soul,
and that *******
is all what remained from love.

And that all we've managed to save from the End
is naked certainty that there's no God left,
only us, only our bodies,
craving to be alive and copulate.

I hope that is what you wanted to hear.

I identify with the folks on a TV screen because we both share a secret; that we are both entertaining and that people want to watch us on a daily. We turn blank in an instant, no more flashing images or language. Maybe now there's a shadow from a light in the background as you sit down. To flip on a channel means getting up but you're too tired to pay attention

I read a lot, so when I finish reading one book, I always have another to keep me going. Sometimes I get too sleepy, so I read one chapter of the new book to fuel me through the night. It's like getting a new episode of a show each week. The first one is a teaser, and it drills you on and pushes your mind to go to incredible places, and when you get a chance to continue reading, well, that puts your heart into a place where it can soar and fly, withering through the skies.

It’s just after 5AM but I am up,
Compelled to write and share with you
Bad images
From video and TV.

I gave you a newborn calf being killed by a lion or something.
But there are countless more.
Young seals being swallowed by killer whales.
A young queen bee stabbing its rivals to death before or after they hatch.

An unlucky wildebeest is pushed by a panicked herd
Back into the river
And into the jaws of a crocodile.
Survival of the fittest
Or luckiest.

Animals running about some abattoirs
Trying to escape death.
Fighting for their lives.
Watching their siblings die.
Enter Man.

A groggy man has survived being shot by a firing squad
So a soldier walks up to him
Puts a pistol to his head and fires
So the man falls
Fountains of blood pumping up from his head
To Beatles music.

Rows of orange shirted men kneeling
A hooded man behind each one
With sword ready at the throat…

So many horrors.
No fiction.
I wonder what God thinks….

Paul Butters

Day's last thoughts play
through the creases of my sleepy mind.
Questions pile like the flakes
on the sidewalks outside.
Square of purple light in my white wall,
                               painted night grey,
glimpse of snowfall--a buzzing, fuzzed-out
scrambled teleplay.

Through interference I'll slide
                                      eventually
          ­                                          down into
                                                     dreaming.
and change the program.
For now, the channel remains right here.
The Winter flickers 'cross my face.

And that window's purple
                              square is a small piece
of a tired world just trying to fall asleep;
A single view of a wider picture
that covers miles. Bends lines into a face.

Impulses race through a fading mind.
Snow is piling deeper
on the bike path outside.
Retrace my steps as eye lids close
                                over distance
Still that square glows--a buzzing, fuzzed-out
scrambled episode.

Through interference I'll slide
                                      eventually
          ­                                          down into
                                                     dreaming
behind the credits.
For now the channel remains right here.
Half-smile flickers 'cross my face.
A different place and some different ways
to transmit greetings across this space
and to broadcast all our withheld wishes
                                             would be fine.

                       But tomorrow I'll wake up.

             And these re-runs never stop.

And that window's purple
                              square is a small piece
of a tired world just trying to fall asleep;
A single snowy, interfered picture.
                   A half-formed question:
     Are you watching this same thing?