#frontier
Seven in the morning.
A lizard whisper in the brainstem,
dry skin perched over
the deep well of heart—
slack-jawed,
hypnotized by the flame eternal
haunting my ribs—
the pilot light
before the clock got lost
in the spiral.
I’m painted in colors outside the rainbow,
swirling loose in a nameless stream.
Here for now,
passing through—
a tea light drifting the dark river
whose banks are endless
and depths beyond knowing.
If I were to fashion a faith,
it would be letting go—
to the currents that brought us here,
and will carry us on.
And somewhere on the frontier of self,
a piano plays alone in a vacant saloon,
its tune floating into the prairie night.
Two eyes catch light in the dark—
closer than I thought—
listening to the twinkling as it carries on.
Their gaze says it all:
the wild accepts everything.
Nov 12, 2025
Nov 12, 2025 at 5:31 PM UTC
I used to hang out in abandoned buildings.
Old machine shops with puddles of rainwater pooled up on the floor;
sun or star light visible between broken and failing rafter beams
and the holes in the ceiling and my eyes.
Sometimes there would be particle board hammered into the brick
where heavy glass windows once stood;
tacked all about with bright yellow and pink postings warning
people like me to stay out and to not trespass under penalty of law.
The warning signs made me nervous because I don’t like to get in trouble.
Sometimes I would notice abandoned spaces while
driving up route 11 - Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I would park and discern through google maps on how
to gain access to yet another relic of American industry before
Wall Street reinvented slavery and shipped the spirit
of the Rust Belt to Mexico and Bangladesh and China and
various sweatshops overseas.
I had a lot of spare time to walk up and down the Wyoming Valley, northeast PA,
looking for the abandoned skeletons of buildings
into which I could furtively enter and abide.
Friday night, long week, punch the clock, no plans - no problem.
It was me and my two feet,
a long walkabout winding through the annals of my memories,
maybe some take out for dinner and all is well.
Don’t get me wrong, I had friends.
I’ve been to many places and I’ve seen many things.
I’ve faced many hardships but I always found a
posse or a partner with whom I could abide in peace and cheerful community.
That is before I would up and leave them abandoned in the wreckage of
my slow motion odyssey of self destruction;
dusting the bones of my many friendships with the many
chem trails from the many jet planes from the many tickets booked
by my father to save me from the many demons gnawing on my neck and heart.
Goodbye florida. Good bye guam. Goodbye california.
Abandoned buildings are safe.
There is a comforting predictability in their steady dilapidation.
There are no standards of social etiquette by which to adhere.
There is no small talk through which manufactured smiles show their teeth.
There are no ****** expressions and body postures to monitor
and reflect back what adjustments in countenance and demeanor I must make.
My face was a Greco-Roman mask.
Stretched and dried out, suspended somewhere between a comedy and a tragedy.
My face is the furthest frontier of my soul song,
the outermost edge of my heart.
That through which sound passes.
Dec 14, 2021
Dec 14, 2021 at 7:16 PM UTC
fat drips
fire, sausage crackles—flames
hiss of steam
Aug 13, 2020
Aug 13, 2020 at 2:24 PM UTC
winter fir
–ing of a thawing musket
crows scatter
Aug 12, 2020
Aug 12, 2020 at 3:02 PM UTC
Because all other women (Kingdoms) are weakness; the kingdom of God is built on wisdom for all. Equality in the pursuit of happiness even by the constitution of the state of Florida in retrospect: Justice is not for sale, denial or delay. All men are created equal and the bar was created not to deny these rights but to protect them as ruled by the Supreme court and under the supreme Law of the land; the United States Constitution. As given by divine providence and nuture's God. The nature of the state of mind and the deeds of the mouth spoken from the heart. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing and for this reason governments were instituted just as moses gave the sermon on the mount. America the beautiful promised land given by God in the divinity demonstrated by Jesus and the famous 4 score and 7 years ago even today. Christ Jesus stood at the crossroads of faith truth Justice and the American way to deliver us this beautiful nation of nations so many have taken for granted today although his banner still waves. ;)
Apr 7, 2020
Apr 7, 2020 at 11:03 AM UTC
Pondering upon an existence
Because I exist I can ponder
What if I uploaded my conciousness
And somehow synced ourselves, I wonder
Mar 8, 2020
Mar 8, 2020 at 7:56 PM UTC
I gaze upon the cosmic void,
Alone and tired from my journey across the frontier.
I pick my feet up, and drift across the surface.
And all I’m surrounded by is silence.
I reach my hands up towards the stars,
Trying to catch a passing comet by its tail.
Flagging down UFO’s to see if I can catch a ride
Along this space highway to anywhere.
I often think of coming home.
I wonder what I’d look like after all this time?
Would I be familiar, or would you greet me as a stranger?
And all I could think to say is sorry.
I see the hues of where you are.
The planet looks like a giant marble with an azure aura.
I need to say goodbye, and I wish you were coming.
But I desire to float on.
Float on….
Apr 4, 2019
Apr 4, 2019 at 3:42 PM UTC
Keep rolling, like sailing, rowing the science voyage.
Discovering a new discovery, then much happens:
a new crescent, new moon on a new turn is found,
yet a night to be invented eclipses it furthermore.
Will the voyage float at the newest dark energy frontier?
Will it now pierce verily the virgin-skinned heaven’s last barrier
that divides the seen and unseen, holds the uncharted water?
Will it by design decode or recite the word, the language
the lock is coded in, the very command written on the stone?
Till then it won’t move, nor does one see the skin black or white,
and till then one won’t stop the sun lighting up the night!
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 11:12 PM UTC
A flower in despair
I wish that I could meet you there
Tell you that it's all right
That dusk will never fade to night
And that I'll never watch you fade across
The seconds on my clock
A million pinprick electric shocks
And all the while the stage is set
I'd bring you into my embrace
Reality would slip away
The world still barely ringing in my ears
Ten thousand empty gestures
Ten thousand empty questions
And you'd become the ringing in my ears
All while the sky turns
Black without a single star
And the stage is set outside
But in the darkness
We still try
Hmm
Not another
Syllable can struggle through my throat
My words I have to choke
for the both of us, I suppose
But I just want to say
I still love the way you play with
The way that I emote
You'll come back to me, I hope
All that's left is to take the stage
Mar 19, 2018
Mar 19, 2018 at 8:08 AM UTC
if ******
who's never
ethereal in
our maiden
world yet
his sojourn
when grange
was his
attraction that
cogito heard
Mussorgsky on
Frontier March
while very
much inside
his hat
for our
generations alas
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 10:16 AM UTC
Plant a fertile garden in summer & harvest all of the fruits and vegetables.
PIckle all of the vegetables.
preserve all of the fruits-leave some
Apples for pie.
Place pickles and preserves in the darkness of the root cellar.
Order How to ****** a Farmhand in 10 Days from the book catalogue.
Order the Art of War also just in case
Invite Handsome Jimmy Pike from the neighbouring farm over for pie.
Get Uncle Abe to cover the dirt floor with planks.
As Mama always said a frozen dirt floor is just for the dirt poor.
Bake Pie. Place on windowsill.
Waft the smell
Of hot pie over toward the woodpile where Uncle Abe is chopping wood.
Invite Jimmy to play Gin Rummy the evening when Uncle Abe is mysteriously ill of a stomach complaint and sleeping in the barn.
Show Jimmy Uncle Abe's tongue and groove method of log cabin construction.
Ask Jimmy to show me the **** and pass method of using unmilled logs to **** up against each other without notching.
Spike Jimmy's tea with ***
Show Jimmy the root cellar.
**** up against Jimmy with notching.
WITH LOTS OF NOTCHING.
Fall pregnant.
Tell Uncle Abe and have a shotgun wedding.
Bake another special pie.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
When The Great Bard wrote his epic plays
America was the new frontier
A widening world of wonder.
But now we look with eagle-eyed telescopes
Out into the depths of space
Beyond the beyond
Back through countless miles and aeons
To Thirteen point eight billion years ago
When our universe appeared.
Send your minds-eye through swirling sandstorm fogs,
Each grain a galaxy
Each galaxy a beach
Of stars.
Most stars are circled
By endless varieties
Of worlds.
There must be Earths out there,
Again too many to number
Making our own a single speck
In that endless night.
The saddest thing, of course,
Is that all these worlds are out of reach,
Unless we find a wormhole
Or that fiction “Star Trek” comes to pass.
Without some warp drive
We are marooned on this island
We call Earth.
Yet we can look
And think:
Imagine what it’s like out there
On sister Earths
In jungles,
Up mountains
And on sky-blue seas.
Paul Butters
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 10:57 AM UTC