#deserts
A leather fabric ages
With unsure purpose and worth
Topaz exchanges for penny copper
Coral stones hamper the shadows
I know the beads are ready
And wish the shade was one
That I had rolled and stayed
Beneath the desert run
Silver shaking, thin and lame
Speaking lies and worry
Hammered gold, now silent
Into the Pacific west I forge myself
Needing more salt above my nights
Feb 18
Feb 18, 2026 at 12:55 PM UTC
The Camel rolled across the desert,
And oh my!
It was a windy long desert!
And the way was wild,
The stars were bright;
The dunes were high: Those Men were brave!
The small boat shalloped over the waters
And oh my! Those were great high waters!
The journey long,
The stars were bright;
The winds so stormy:
Those Men were brave!
The spaceship hurled through Outer Space
And oh my! What a void that was!
The trip so long: The stars so multicolored bright!
The ship so small! Those Men were brave!
Jan 8
Jan 8, 2026 at 4:52 PM UTC
Mine enemies were as weeds
they flowered thick in number,
I scythed them one by one
and created a desert
so dry, that nothing dares to grow,
except for me
the rolling wind
and my nodding yes-men crows
Oct 17, 2025
Oct 17, 2025 at 3:26 AM UTC
Gift of The Magi
Were I, Magi,
I might toss the runes,
Look across the sweeping sands
And marvel at the dunes.
Read the words of poets
Who have courted many moons,
Search the far horizon
For signs of passing.
This sense of great sadness
Moves through the midnight air.
I ask a lone stranger, but they
Just look at me and stare.
And if I stare right back at them,
Their stare becomes a glare.
So I look across the sweeping sands,
And marvel at the dunes,
Open up my velvet bag,
And again, I toss the runes.
Mar 24, 2025
Mar 24, 2025 at 8:41 PM UTC
I was once a lonesome pioneer,
A past life ways away,
I spurred my horse in desert sands.
A familiar stranger,
Is all I ever was,
Anyone could tell you, nobody remembered me,
I was in by sunset and left by it's rise,
A way-fairing American,
Inspired by new lands,
After all, the west is best.
Mar 23, 2025
Mar 23, 2025 at 11:51 AM UTC
The wind buffets against me and I feel free
drying the sweat from the blazing sun.
Across the desert I run, the rumble of the road
radiates up through my soul and lifts me,
somewhere above myself.
Looking down at the lone rider, the sole survivor
at least it feels that way to me.
I roll the power on, faster and faster I run
barren landscapes all around.
But you can't outrun the desert son,
It seems god speaks to me so I smile
and slow down.
Nov 15, 2024
Nov 15, 2024 at 2:19 PM UTC
shifting winds blow tenderly
revealing all that they're covering
unearthing old tunes so lovingly
brushing over their edges and caressing
gentle notes of sand rush softly
Oct 28, 2024
Oct 28, 2024 at 10:19 PM UTC
Not the heart that beats in the heat of desert milk!
Not the milk that duplicates and does not sink into searing sand!
Please! I see it now! The Pale Sun rising above Klee Temple— inspired by lines of dread.
The maddening has begun!
We shall rendezvous with the camel spiders, those who pince at the moon within chambers of the dead.
Mar 18, 2024
Mar 18, 2024 at 10:59 AM UTC
I dip my index finger into a cold butterscotch pudding,
closing my eyes as i bring it to my warm lips and a burst of surprising flavors enter onto my taste buds.
Sweet, Caramel oh so creamy....this is why i love my pudding.
Oct 22, 2020
Oct 22, 2020 at 9:11 PM UTC
Sahara Dust
Ally & Foe
By
Carson OTP Alexander
Potassium, Calcium, Iron,
Nitrogen, Phosphorus
Are food for Phytoplanktons n Amazon Trees,
Still loads of it is a Blanket that makes me sneeze ,
Hurt you n me medically,
Via its nourishments n Blows,
Is D Sahara Dust
Ally & Foe,
Transported By Easternly Trade Winds,
Depositing tons
On The Atlantic Ocean n various land falls,
Decreasing Strength of Hurricanes,
Unknown to us all?
Authenticated By Various Scientists,
A food source chain & Mental Bliss,
Similar in Color to Clouds Of Rain,
Viewed from my Naked eye,
Upon The coastal turrain,
Natures Happiness & Pain,
Via Its Nourishments & Blows,
The Sahara Dust
Ally & Foe!
Jul 3, 2020
Jul 3, 2020 at 8:31 PM UTC
remember the mountains you've climbed,
the valleys, the deserts, the cold nights,
everything you've been through to reach here.
bring the lessons, the people you love,
anything you need for the journey ahead,
and greet the new year at the summit.
Dec 31, 2019
Dec 31, 2019 at 7:32 PM UTC
You had not joined me
My totem-journey to the wellspring of the Colorado
to seek the source of things uncontained
the stars washed over me with asphyxiation
the breathless gasp of space
--In the deserts;
Rocklands--
the emerald barrel cactus
is watered as the earth
and the passerby
Cheyenne
cut into the crust
to sip the wine-flesh
to be drunk
and exhume the inhibitions of living
Forbidden berries
in the garden of quills, spear thistles
trust upon the air to protect her children
a good, silent mother
does not refuse
the gift of deflowering
as she is stripped
of her sharpness
and laundered
bestowed in salted bison skin of a war-chief's pouch.
Nov 27, 2018
Nov 27, 2018 at 12:44 PM UTC
This muggy, sultry sun is no fun:
Longest sustained heatwave for over forty years.
Suffocating Sahara with Death Valley cracks
In the dry arid soil.
My electric fan shattered with a power surge
Into fragmented plastic shards.
I so miss it now.
It’s oppressively tropical,
With volcanic heat
And Pressure bearing down on us.
The clammy mugginess of a sauna.
Not the clean dry air you find abroad,
Yet still that remorseless torrid scorching,
Roasting and toasting.
Just too much.
Hot air clothed in humid moisture,
Stuffy and sweaty,
Steaming to a haze
And later
Thunder storms.
I long for a cool brew
To freeze my throat
And quench my raging thirst:
Ice cool, ice cool, ice cool.
I’m sure not talking
Of tea.
Paul Butters
© PB 6\8\2018.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 8:29 AM UTC
Sunshine!
Life’s lingering flashlight.
Too bright to stare at the sun.
Don’t stay out in it too long.
Suffocating heat sometimes.
My porch gets like a baking oven.
Get burnt and it will peel your skin.
Visions of desert dunes,
Camel trails:
A searing sun that sends you delirious,
Mirage-seas shimmering hypnotically above the sands.
I love the sun.
My memories of buckets and spades,
Golden sandcastles along the esplanades.
Delicious ice-cream.
A cooling breeze.
Grass and pollen
Making you sneeze.
A mini-heatwave we have now,
But storms will come
Over that brow.
British weather I have to say:
Sunshine now
For which we’ll pay.
Paul Butters
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 5:14 AM UTC
Why is it so much easier to be disillusioned
about the lush forest than it is to see the
flowers that really exist?
Why is it easier to feel the vastness of a desert than it is
to feel the vastness of a life/ rainforest?
Sure no **** we don’t live in an oasis but that does not mean
trees taller than building don’t exist,
it does not mean we live in the middle of a desert with
time frozen and sand liquid.
Sure there are snakes in the sand but they are not the only animals.
Monkeys, lizards octopi whales, humans all of us exist.
We live among deserts and oasis’s.
So for gods sake while deserts are big can we not champion the oceans
that are a little bigger?!
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 12:44 PM UTC
Yes I confess, yes I agree
that I love to play with fire.
I am well aware that it can
lead to consequences dire.
Yes I know you all love me
but you all are afraid of fire.
I know that you know truth
but danger you don't aspire.
I don't blame if you all don't
want a route through fire.
Your destination through
path rosy you could acquire.
While playing I've burnt all
my dreams all my desires.
My affinity my attraction is
only and only blazing fire.
And if by chance while
playing with fire I am set afire.
And if unexpectedly I turn into
ashes by dangerous fire.
Throw it in oceans, blow it
with winds, scatter it in deserts.
Before with worldly filth and
dirt the ashes are bemired.
So that Haply some explorer
may find the truth I've found.
So that someone may smell
the truth which I've smelled.
So that some thirsty in mirage
may see the truth I've seen.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 3:52 AM UTC
When I met you, believe me, I didn’t intend to fall for you. By no means did I want to put your laugh on repeat every time it filled the air, every time it filled the room, all the moments when it felt like time didn’t have a definition to begin with. When I met you, I did not believe that opposites could attract. I did not know how valuable words could be until they came in slow thought out sentences, quickly traveling from your lips to my ears and hanging in the space between us like Christmas ornaments, the ones that are so beautiful you understand why they should only be put on display for a short period of time, the kind where you’re afraid to touch them in case you might leave a fingerprint, smudge the beauty of it off with your quick responses and loud voice, the ornaments you put high enough on the tree for everyone to see, but not high enough for the risk of it to break. You tell me that you are easily breakable, when people first meet you, you tell me, that your brain stops functioning because it cannot handle the pressure that new people bring with them. It’s not easy for you to let people in enough to see your elaborate conversations. My luck is the kind of luck that gets me close enough to want for me to see it, know that I’m close enough to touch it only to have me land on my face not much farther from where I began. I am lucky enough to know you, lucky enough to hear all the ticks of your brain that the world could only dream of hearing, but I will never be lucky enough to love you. I’m a desert that doesn’t get rain for hundreds of years at a time, and you are a thunderstorm that will only stay for a little while, you will overflow me with happiness, flood me with hope, and create fields of dreams and overdone romantic scenarios that I am not good enough to play the role for. When you leave, when you return to the amazon where you belong, there will be some lonely hikers who will find the remains of what I wanted it to be between us. They will pick the flowers with your name on it, but they will not question. Some questions aren’t meant to be answered. And the same reasoning applies to how beautiful Christmas ornaments don’t belong on the same branch with the generic ones you find at the bottom of the dollar store bin.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 10:39 PM UTC
crops on the badlands
I do not yield
hot, pressed fingers
no diminishing resolve
and yet curiosity prevails
the mist in the morning
the sigh at dusk
it wins out against all thought
nam myoho renge kyo
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 5:35 PM UTC