We bathed on the carpet’s edge, in October light
made warm again by pimple-glass and wishful thinking.
We played games and we whispered- as if quiet
could conjure Safe from thin air, and noise conjure Evil.
We occupied the in-betweens; the hall, the stairs, the path.
Drew and drew and drew, with red-brick and chalk and dust.
We chewed the skin around our nails, until our fingers cried-
And when Dark came early, he found us fighting Monsters
in the Artex with our jagged little minds.

Don’t cut all your food up before you eat it:
Slice as you go.
And don’t mix up your curry and rice first:
Take some curry, add some rice…
“But I can eat it all at once this way”.

Cut your box hedge only once or twice per year.
“That will let it grow six foot high instead of four though”.
Do all your shopping at once.
Plan ahead so you don’t have to nip out for things.
“Hate shopping. Rather buy as and when.”

Put your Geraniums in pots over winter.
“I’ll need hell of a lot of pots!
Will break the roots
Digging them out
Of that claggy soil.”

Your Artex could have Asbestos in it:
That could be dangerous.
“I’m not about to drill into it
And breathe in the dust am I?”

What you don’t know when your car MOT and tax are due?
“My garage knows and they look after me.
But I checked them on the internet now.
The garage is right.”

You didn’t know you’d paid off your mortgage
And you claimed for a moat?
“I’m a politician”.

Why do you put all that ******* on Facebook?
“Because my friends Love my posts and say so.”

You are supposed to…
You shouldn’t…
You should…
You mustn’t…
You Must!

"People!"

Paul Butters

© PB 26\3\2018.

shadows slow

to the point where only the wine matters

they stop and watch awhile wondering,
"today"?
perpetual Sundays denounce tomorrow across a fictional bridge,
constricting as a pulmonary sigh, though even the laziest of walks would suffice to sluice a cleaner way

but I jaw the sky from where I lay, expect that it should change into a major key,

corroborate my sickest dreams and mimic mouthed mischief



and I lie in many more ways
dreary under the prescription of nervous attendance


beyond the arctic eye, the blue skied sighs
stare through the Artex topography of childhood
behind the curtains patterned with glimpsed bears,

at best,
at worst the horror of a dead childhood friend

amongst the machine drawn memories
a path beyond the puddled neon jigsaws might lead me

to a closed set where the gentlemanly objects of debauched and thrilled robberies decline

while stretched behind the soft reach of a silken knee,

a nyloned thigh
the plainest lips pose the riddle

that entertains your pity
yet ***** all hope of a shy siege and leave me hints

in kiss shaped welts,

roses smeared like lipstick misses,
somehow innocent in the routine of predicament
then parcelled into dreams of hyena logic

I am of a mind
that, in winter, the oxygen levels
decline as the trees hunch
like upturned, diseased lungs
breathless and malign

It’s zero hundred hours on the 1st of July
I’m alone with the truth of silence
There is something to be said for stoicism, for getting on
My soul longs to release a river of tears
I focus on the light patterns
Across my dated artex ceiling
Rays of light like sunbeams
Through my 70s style, wicker light shade
I wonder about the lonely households
All the broken hearts
The ones regretting
And the ones taking it all for granted
Melancholy surrounds me like an aura
And spreads under my skin

On the edge
I'm nine again
standing
daringly atop the stairs bannister,
wearing my Holly-Hobbie flannelled gown.
Artex ceiling barnacles rough against my palms.
I can smell onions, coal, and doom.

On that edge
I imagine
falling,
flying like an angel.
Butterfly arms carrying me skyward
away, away from frozen failure,
just like Daddy will.

On this edge
I'm no longer nine,
I'm waiting,
longer than my nine-year-self would have.
Waiting for the crescendo
in my glass-heart to choose,
fall hard or rage harder.

Eyes glazed
shipwrecked
by a pink fizzing tide
absolution of worries...
Endorphins collide

Neck craned back
silently studying contours
of a spiralled artex ceiling

Neatly pressed pills
beginning to digest
will I ever tire of this
blissful abundant feeling?

Incarcerated by the current
drifting like a drunken log
barely buoyant, saturated
marooned in pea soup fog