He was lying on the futon, watching Battlestar Galactica. I was in my nightgown sitting in his windowsill, smoking a cigarette, bored, restless & lonely. I stared out the window, looked down at the ground.

“Do you think if I fell out of your window, I would die?” I asked him.

“I don’t know if you’d die, but you would get seriously hurt that’s for sure.” He mumbled.

I took a long drag from my cigarette and looked back out the window. The street was empty and dark. The only illumination came from a single streetlight about half a block from where I was sitting. I stared at that streetlight for a long time, feeling as alone as ever. After a minute or so, I began to feel his eyes penetrate my core. I looked at him. He was all limbs spread in every direction. The flame in his eyes told me more than I wanted to know.

“Do you ever feel like a moth?” I asked him.

“In what sense?”

“I dunno, like do you ever feel like you’re always attracted to something that is out to destroy you in the end? Like no matter where you end up, you find yourself hitting the same lightbulb over and over as if it could save you… When really it will be the death of you?”

He looked at me quizzically. Electricity filled in the gaps between us.

“Why are you thinking about that?”

He reminded me of myself - always answering a question with a question.

I looked back at the streetlight and I could see the silhouettes of insects all around it.

“Oh, I was just noticing the streetlight over there and all of the bugs surrounding it. Don’t you ever feel like that though?” I asked him again.

“Well when you put it that way, I’ve always felt like that, yeah.”

“I have a book of poems that my friend Emma gave to me a while back - there’s a poem in there that reminds me of feeling like that. It’s called ‘the lesson of the moth’. I’d like to read it to you sometime.”

I took a drag from my cigarette and looked at him again. Beautiful, he was in that moment. Just lying there listening to me, I felt like I was being heard for the first time. Battlestar Galactica had then become just a fuzz of white noise. I stared at him in silence.

“What are you staring at?” I smiled.

“You.”

“Why?”

“You’re beautiful.”

I looked back at the streetlight and exhaled a long puff of smoke.

Minutes rolled by. I couldn’t bear to look at him again. I have a hard time being seen.

“Looking at you is like listening to a symphony.” He said at last.

I was caught more by the charm of how he was more absorbed by the moment of me and not the boring television series that blurred in the background, never mind the romance of what had just escaped from his mouth.

Because I knew I wasn’t the first girl he’s looked at like that, and I wouldn’t be the last.

But dammnit, he sure knew how to make my skin melt and my heart burn.

Twenty-five pigeons are doing **** rips in my living room.
In the middle of my living room
twenty-five pigeons
are doing **** rips
of **** that they bought
off my next door neighbor
who just happened to have some lying around.
There are twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room,
and they will not stop watching
Battlestar Galactica.
The twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room
ate all of my Cheese Nips,
and they drank the last
of the RC Cola I bought.
I try to get
the twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room
to leave,
because I hate it when they do this,
but they just coo at me
and that shuts me up.
One of the twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips
in my living room
accidentally knocks over
the ****
and spills bongwater
all over my ******* carpet.
The **** cracks.
They start flapping their wings really hard
and ******* everywhere,
because they're pigeons
and they're mad.
But then,
one of the twenty-five pigeons
produces some hash wax
from under his wings,
and now there's twenty-five pigeons
doing knife hits
of hash wax
over my stove,
and quite frankly
I'm ******.
I run in
and start waving my arms
around,
and scream,
"Get the **** out of here,
who let you in anyway?"
And the head pigeon drops the knife on accident,
and they all fly out of my living room
and into the sky,
all really blazed,
leaving me here,
mad,
with a bunch of stains on my carpet.

The anti hero is a zero,
Because is only really needed to make the hero in the fictional story a hero,
So lets be honest, the anti hero is only needed in fictional reality for the adventure,
So movies, books and TV series need the anti hero,
You have The Master in Doctor Who,
You have Khan in Star Trek,
You have Darth Vader in Star Wars,
You have General Zod in Superman,
You have Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon,
You have The Joker in Batman,
You have Count Baltar in Battlestar Galactica,
You have Diana in the V series,
You have Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers,
Because really the anti hero is a zero,
Because really the anti hero is a zero,
Because really the anti hero is a zero.

I'm fighting Victorians, Edwardians thinking they're Georgians.
Does Cameron think he's a battlestar?
He may shoot from the lips but does he take things too far?
and where are we in all this?

The kiss me quick, vote for me slick brigade come
on a hunting raid and
bang the **** out of my door.

Whatya knocking me up from my bed for?
Votes just confuse me and you lot just
use me.

I'm still fighting, streetwise, keeping tight in
the clinch
at a pinch I could compromise, might let
them see the light that shines but
when I open my eyes
I think
Nah,
I'll not bother.

What is left to say
About our humdrum daily lives?
Monday to Sunday all year round
In time manufactured by mankind.
Monotonous mazes of standardised building blocks.
Daytime TV all timetabled and scheduled
The Interweb
Media meditation
For brainwashed, mindless zombies:
Heads immersed in mobile phones
Or faces bathed in television light.

Crime ridden streets await us
When we venture forth
To pre-appointed places
In a world we call “Routine”.

Little wonder then
That Imagination soon takes over
At least for me.
Heading off to Planet Paul
For flights of fancy
Fuelled by Star Trek
And Battlestar Gallactica to name but two
Of my favourite shows.
For I love Space
And anything else that lies beyond
The dreariness
Of the Here and Now.

Why do you write?
They ask as if Confession is required.
I stumble on my words
Trying to explain
How I simply have to write.
For I never can stop dreaming
And once I dream
Then I simply have to share
Whatever I’ve dreamt
With all of you.

Paul Butters

© PB 18\12\2018.

As I walk out of my door
A clichéd cacophony of birdsong
Surrounds me with beauty
And uplifts my soul.

Yet we humans too love to sing
And play those instruments:
Creating lullabies, arias, symphonies,
Serenades and rock and roll shows.
To name but a few.

Angelic choirs in lofty minsters,
Lifting us up to the stars,
Embracing God in Heaven.
Heavy metal bands
Thrashing out thunder
In stadia seething with singing fans.
Brass bands too: trumpeting and rumpeting
In a crescendo of sound.

Hear those trembling triangles and sublime wind chimes.
Feel those bouncing drums.
Twanging, sweeping, swooning
Plucking, soaring, crying
Guitar.
Tinkling pianos and weeping violins.
Whole orchestras of mind-blowing sound,
Welsh rugby crowds
And the Liverpool Kop.

Magical music:
From spiritually haunting
To simply getting laid.
Bringing out the animal in us:
Passion and desire
Raw emotion
Or else the supernatural
Ethereal skyscapes
Sometimes sheer dread
And horror.

Watch any good film:
The musical score is everything:
“Star Wars”, “Gone with the Wind”, “******”
“Battlestar Gallactica”, “Ben Hur”…
Beethoven, Mozart, The Beatles
The Stones, Queen, Genesis…
So much to love
Chuck Berry and Elvis
Rocking and rolling and reeling
And stealing our minds away.

So let’s get singing
And dancing
And banging those drums,
Flexing our plectrums
To make one helluva
Noise.
Let that magical music play
For Ever.

Paul Butters

© PB 10\4\2020.

I have a quote for every situation
From friendship to love
From enemies to hate
But now I see
There is no quote for heartbreak
I try to use someone else’s words
Because mine don’t feel right
But I reach out
And there aren’t any words
My security blanket made of
“As you wish”
“This is our time down here”
Of bears beets and Battlestar Galactica
Of movies, books, podcasts, shows
Even of lyrics
There are none to describe me

I watched a full on alien invasion.

I called the family to look
but
they just sat in their daydreams
and didn't give a

look,
I said,
aliens.

I woke into the light
peeped out the window and
not a Battlestar in sight

just a dream again
too much Irish Cream
in my coffee
I expect.