"counties" poems
Better that every fiber crack
and fury make head,
blood drenching vivid
couch, carpet, floor
and the snake-figured almanac
vouching you are
a million green counties from here,
than to sit mute, twitching so
under prickling stars,
with stare, with curse
blackening the time
goodbyes were said, trains let go,
and I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from
my one kingdom.
53.4k
Establish a research and development facility tasked with recycling 100,000 commonly used household goods or packaged products back into the original base material needed to remake it into new product packaging. Pass legislation requiring all companies selling products with packaging to buy their source materials from a registered public-private venture allowing any firm willing to participate to do so. Companies must then manufacture packaging locally using source materials supplied by one of the public-private companies. Companies will also be required to hire locally using a diversity and economic income model incorporating or locating the participating companies in the poorest rural counties in the state.
Society grows great when Old Men plant trees. -Socrates
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC
She was a Hatfield
And I a McCoy
It was just love beween
A girl and a boy
Our daddies grandaddies
And those from before
Might think us irreverant
To open that door
She lived two towns over
It was love at first sight....
We would slip out and meet
Every Sat. night
The neighbors all thought
It just wasn't right
But we were in love
And it wasn't our fight
Only two counties apart
She lived in West V
My home was Kentucky
The suitor was me
To us it was foolish
The feud was so old
Even though it was famous
From the tales that were told
She lived two towns over
It was love at first sight....
We would slip out and meet
Every Sat. night
The neighbors all thought
It just wasn't right
But we were in love
And it wasn't our fight
We'd meet after dark
At a barn down the line
We were not feuding people
For that night she was mine
We would run off together
After school was complete
We'd change both our names
We would be real discreet
She lived two towns over
It was love at first sight....
We would slip out and meet
Every Sat. night
The neighbors all thought
It just wasn't right
But we were in love
And it wasn't our fight
Our folks would reject us
And spoil our joy
Cause here was a Hatfield
With a real McCoy
For now, we'll be secret
Share our love cross the fence
And we'll wait till our kin folk
Wake up with some sense
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 5:15 PM UTC
Bottom feeders flourish
When the economy's a bust
When bad times are the norm
And good times turn to dust
When neighborhoods go south it's sad
But a sign of their demise
Is when a bunch of pawn shops open up
Before your very eyes
When stores close down or move on out
After years in the same place
Their memory is a radar blip
They leave without a trace
But as fast as they lock up their doors
Another shop moves in
It's the local pawn shop dealer
He's a shark without a fin
Like dollar stores and boarded doors
The pawn shop shows the way
That business has moved on out
Or closed or moved away
They prey on peoples hardship
They broker deals without a care
They don't need to know your history
They just know that you're there
The street has three new pawn shops
Palaces of buy back stuff
It's bad when there is one around
But, three...well that's enough
One opened by the Jeweller
Two doors down across the street
Now he's buying up possessions
Of everyone he meets
Folks who purchased jewellery
From Old Cy at his old store
For each twenty of it's value
The pawn shop gives you four
Cy can't afford to buy back
He doesn't have much money left
And besides his store insurance
Doesn't cover much for theft
The people at the Pawn shops
Took jobs and live in town
They trained two counties over
They succeed when times are down
It's a sign of the recession
Downtown dies and fades away
And then the bottom feeders surface
Their the ones who're gonna stay
You can look in the shop windows
Know who bought what and from where
You know the candlesticks were bought at Cy's
And you know who bought them there
The guitar that hangs beside them
That was pawned by Emma Rose
She needed money for the bills
When the fresh fish plant had closed
There's a snapshot of the township
Sitting inside on their walls
They pawn shop is successful
While the economy still falls
You can see a piece and start to cry
For you know just why it's there
There's no one here to help them
There's no jobs and it's not fair
They open up each morning
While the nights dregs still sleep outside
They have done two hours business
Before lights on at Cy's
It's a sad and constant story
Of just what a town's become
But when asked if they've been in there
The inhabitants go "mumb"
They never seem to close up
The town's never make it back
While most places lose money
Pawn shops make it by the sack
The bluesman has some stuff there
The bartender has some too
Even though her bar's still going
She did what she had to do
The street, it is it's own world
Jewelly shops, banks and bars
But inside the local pawn shops
Are hidden all the scars.
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 7:54 PM UTC
For sixteen days a village lives
then it disappears from sight
It's filled with the worlds residents
For two days plus one fortnight
In four years, there's another one
Another village, 'neath the moon
The next one will be in Brazil
An Olympic Brigadoon
It closes down and goes to sleep
After all records are sought
For four years it's gone from our minds
A place that time forgot
Like Brigadoon, this village lives
In the worlds collective hearts
Until a new one comes again
four years from end to start
Memories and records set
By those who came and went
They were their counties best and brightest
All well deserving, those who're sent
To a village never seen before
And only seen a small amount
The times it was on our tv sets
Is just too few to count
A place of such emotion
A place where legends stayed
A place of such great magic
They gave their best each time they played
But tonight, when the torch is turned off
And the celebrations end
And the residents pack up to leave
An empty village left to tend
In four years there's another one
With those inspired by these games
They'll live in a new village
And the world will learn their names
but, out of sight and out of mind
For four years comes real soon
Another athletes village
Another Olympic Brigadoon..
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 3:09 PM UTC
Like sugar from a shaker, snow falls on Saul the baker
delivering steamy biscuits from the shop he calls his home
to a drafty run down mansion where the princess on her pension
can be testy with her tension, hence she's living on her own.
Today he took her order, "One fresh bagel, for a quarter
'cause I haven't seen the likes of one since I left my childhood home".
Well he'd never baked a bagel, but he's not one to finagle
and wanting just to please her, finds a recipe from Rome.
And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind~
no woman's gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.
So to win her deep affection he packs up his best confection
takes his chances on the back roads, now iced over in the storm.
Finds her waiting in the foyer with her thrifty 5 cent lawyer
complaining 'bout the day old bread and... "this bagel isn't warm!"
So..... he heats it on the fire, 'cause her heart is his desire
but she won't accept the bagel for it's not quite the right form
And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind
no woman gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.
So he runs back to his bagel board and pounds the dough and rolls a cord
and shapes the perfect circle to a bagel lovers dream,
He boils and then he bakes it and to her mansion then he takes it
piping hot but now she wants it with churned butter from fresh cream!
Well he's starting to get antsy but he knows the farmer, Clancy
whose butter is fresh-churned and known by counties far and wide.
He heads out to the pasture and he buys what he is after
and returns to find, 'tis so unkind, the princess, she had died.
The baker in his stricken state swallows the bagel off the plate
he calls the cops, pulls out the stops and serves the day old bread.
He gives the details more than once of how he ate the evidence
and though he thought his story bought, they arrested him instead.
"Tis a likely story", was the only thing he heard
although they'd bought his baked goods, they could not buy his word.
"The Baker is a Butcher", is what the tabloid said,
"better to take your bagel cold than take it in the head."
But all was not as it appears, she owed the butcher in arrears
and when they went to check her craw they found a hunk of mutton.
It ended all without a trial, the butcher he did reconcile
and posted "Pay the butcher now and do not to be a glutton."
And Saul was thinking to himself, " I must be way out of mind",
no woman's gonna want a baker's life",
but he carried deep inside his heart the will to be a friend
and it turned rather nicely as she willed him in the end.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 8:55 PM UTC
Bredon Hill
by A. E. Houseman
In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And here the larks so high
About us in the sky.
The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away;
'Come all to church, good people;
Good people come and pray.'
But here my love would stay.
And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
'Oh peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church on time.'
But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.
They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.
The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum,
'Come all to church, good people'--
Oh, noisy bells be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
2k
Starting way up north from
from fair head in Antrim to
mizen head in Cork there is
not a Border Collie in the 32
counties wishing for a return
to The Troubles before the
Good Friday agreement when
meat was forbidden by the
Catholic Church because fish
is for felines and it was seen
by many canines as a blatant
act of segregation, racism and
even discrimination for which
the animal kingdom of Eire
(In the absence of a Monarch)
has been audibly vocal in all
of the four provinces, many of
the nations kennel clubs and
at last years Crufts Show in
Earls Court London, a Kerry
Blue refused to stand on the
winners podium with a Poodle
who shared first place, because
she was a vegetarian and not
at all sympathetic or supportive
to a universal diet for all breeds
on the island of Ireland.
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 11:30 AM UTC
1089
Myself can read the Telegrams
A Letter chief to me
The Stock’s advance and Retrograde
And what the Markets say
The Weather—how the Rains
In Counties have begun.
’Tis News as null as nothing,
But sweeter so—than none.
1.8k
Barbed wire fence runs into town
A rusted fence that reaches from two counties down
Dirt roads fall miles apart
I walked each one
Dusty and hot
The sun is settining
Shadows growing, snakes and dogs
I cut through a pasture
Keeping eye for the farmer
With his twelve gauge double barrel
Waiting for the kids to hop the fence
And pick the glowing mushrooms
Growing at the woodline
A tree in the center where the cows sleep soundly
I wandered and sat near as the moon was rising
It's just me alive
And the millions of stars
The headlights of old trucks
The crickets chirp tonight
Fast and loud
As I lay back and study a long silver cloud
Why do I make things so complicated?
Why do I find myself turning onto dead end roads?
The headlights reflect bright in the mirrors
As the car speeds by
A girl watches me stand up from the tree
And wipe the dirt from my pants
Aug 14, 2012
Aug 14, 2012 at 12:30 AM UTC
Washington was the first, helped emancipate,
His skills as a leader, nothing less than great.
A founding father, during the Revolutionary war,
America's first general, British trouble was in store.
Crossed the Delaware, while the English slept,
On the Limeys army, his troops had crept.
This historic victory, both clever and tactical,
Thoughts of independence now were practical.
Now victory assured, not bowing to the king,
Colonists were free, here there voices sing.
George rule the colonies, we put you on a throne,
Let's start a new democracy, he said in a gentle tone.
Served as the president for eight strong years,
Loved by the voters, respected by his peers.
The next great man, to hold political reigns,
Was our counties leader, during the time of great pains.
Born in the woods, his character strongly built,
His passion for equality, never did wilt.
Families torn apart, North against South,
The Emancipation Proclamation, wisdom out of Abe's mouth.
The Civil War now over, abolished was the slave,
The social order of the States, beginning to repave.
Lincoln wasn't alive, to see freedom abound,
Shot by Wilkes Booth, the world mourned the sound,
Heard at Ford's theater, that fateful night,
His spirit is alive, it continues to fight.
For freedom and justice and the American way,
Both Washington and Lincoln are honored this day.
Visit poemsbypaul.com
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 1:09 PM UTC
I took a drink of cool, clean water,
That came from within a wishing well,
It tasted sweet and filled me deeper,
With precious life that came to me.
I wanted more, of this cool beverage,
So, took another drink, then took two,
It filled my body with such robust flavor,
That on my journey I could now venture on.
When coming upon a run-down farmhouse,
Where wind blew whispfully in swaying trees,
I picked a pear from the nearest pear tree,
And held the fruit in hand so gracefully.
The pear was sweet, the juice ran rapidly,
Down on my chin, onto my denim shirt,
I felt the grit, the fruit soon was tastefully,
Set fire to my tastebuds so endlessly.
I glanced upon the cornfields so lonely,
Standing tall and giant they reached for sky,
The greeness filled my mind with fancy,
Then, so I wandered to fields to further see.
Within the field, a lovely, young beauty,
Was pulling corn from the green, green stalks,
Her smile, a greeting, to me weary wanderer,
I took her hand and handled it so tenderly.
She said she spent her days in the cornfields,
I sensed she wanted to switch places with me,
To wander aimlessly, through nearby counties,
In search of self so then so senselessly.
But me, a mortal, mere man of mans' time,
Would what give readily to find all the day,
To stand silently within cornfields, green I see,
To shuck corn from the cornfields so handily.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 11:49 PM UTC
We still see and hear their annoying class,
business Blackberry users amplify their relic, a discourse with the plebs,
plumb clipped tones from deepest
Home counties and southern coast
tired men with families
moved to gentrified London,
at any farmers market you catch them
in their 4x4, dress down best
a pram in tow, Pomfrey junior
their prodigal Norman sounding offspring
rhetorically the promised land,
a seed bank unending.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:24 AM UTC
American school bombings
London stabbings
Gaza shootings
North Korea missile launching
Russian poisoning
So many broken counties
Lying politicians
Teenage pregnancies
Kids cutting
Child ***********
Babies born as addicts
So many broken people
Air Pollution
Ice caps melting
Diminishing resources
Global warming
Seas of *******
So many broken things in the world
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 7:51 AM UTC
Rusted train tracks slip down the road, winding into the fog.
Memories of old shows and carnivals brings me back to a time when I thought cotton candy and hot dogs were sacred.
I reach into my pocket to find twenty-nine cents.
The change from the Coca-Cola I bought that day when I was traveling for the first time alone. Three hours, Los Angeles to San Diego.
I remember my mother and father telling me to cherish the time we had together on our family vacations. I was never afraid of flying or got sick in cars or boats, but homesick? I was always looking for my origin.
In the final hours before sunset, tumbleweeds tip-toe and roll across those tracks which travel to all roads and counties, residing at this final crossing.
I didn't wait for the train to arrive before I started walking.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
this is when i want you the most; when its 9 30 am and it is still gray outside because the rain came early today. press your fingertips into the dips of my waist with every roll of thunder because you are here and i am here and its dark but its still a new day. in arizona, we're lucky to get rain three months out of the year, those months are called monsoon season. heavy storms that knock over chairs and threaten windows, knock on car doors begging to be let in. we count down to the start of monsoon season and i cant help but think how beautiful it is that so many people who will never meet all look forward to this one thing. when it rains, we cry, creating our own storms and puddles on tile floors with rumbling laughter for thunder. you, dear, are a monsoon, in every sense of the word; strong and beautiful and devastating. anticipated. i count down the days, and when you finally arrive, everything is finally bright; your smile supplied its own lightning. you knock on the counties of my body and make yourself at home until its time to go. monsoons always start and end with drool and you are the same way, able to create something from nothing; incredible.
Oct 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019 at 3:07 AM UTC
Our whirlwind extravaganza
started out innocent enough.
Jimmy & I were jukebox heroes
shooting some eightball,
guzzling a few pitchers
of the golden liquid,
specialty hops down
at the microbrewery.
Minutes fades into
what seemed like forever,
faces got bigger than disappeared.
One thing led to another,
we ended up three counties away,
waiting & watching
for the alien abduction.
Four teenage drifters
we had picked up
sticking thumbs out
were hanging with us.
One by one
familiar-voices
faded into the surf,
and as the sun began to rise,
I found myself alone
in my auto with an empty tank,
two flats & a scar
on the back of my neck.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC
over the edge of the unitary verse written in the solitary confinement of the mind is where you went insane and began hallucinating the life you live today. there were flowers and knives. flowers and knives, waterfalls. countless counties all incorporated into greater provinces which collapsed into imaginary boundaries rung-up at the cash register as 'nation-states.' you waited months for nothing, only to toy with more escapist sentiment in the forked decision between reckless abandon and suicide. who are you to feel so entitled? who are you to imagine this life is something one could arrange from the silk and ore left strewn throughout the clear-cut forest of your atomic quarks or dendrites from string theory you can only create as a mental mural and never more? in the wake of your last moment in-sanity (prior to your exit from the womb) - you asked me what I meant when I was silent. I told you nothing - not as statement, but as silence - and you simply whistled and wailed in an ecstatic blend of distress and joy, happiness and sadness, elation and indifference, loathing and love - who was the angel detaching your pod from the mother-ship? you have never seen your mother from the outside before. you have only known her intimately - been a part of her. been her very soul. you have never multiplied like this before and that's what it is to know yourself. having children is your soul in transit - your soul multiplied by 2 - finally, the child gazes into your eyes and knows itself. knows who it used to be. knows it's departure is simply the addition of its perspective to the ever dividing multiverse. dust to dust, ashes to ashes one whispers upon the death bed. light to dark, something to nothing one whispers upon the death bed. the multiverse is a binary sequence of 0 and 1 in perpetuity - from birth to death to death to life to life to gone to gone to found from something to nothing to nowhere to you
reading these words
hearing them spoken
you are dreaming
you are always dreaming
you are a truth come dream and a dream come true
and you forgot. you still forget. you will never remember.
you will never remember.
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 5:44 PM UTC
Because if you study those
Decrepit maps curled up in the
corners of antique stores and
the menus of sleepy little diners
Where retired navy men gather to drink coffee
Murky as the water they worked on
For their entire uncertain lives
You would be studying
what used to be Slaughter County
Where it remains tranquilized
By narcotic gray skies
Next to islands that awkwardly
break off from the mainland
Creating channels
Where anxiety is drained
Into the population of
the suicidal indigenous
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 5:24 AM UTC
your mouth is a wristwatch. i stare
impatiently. noticing strange things,
folding the corners of my page-wanting fingers towards you.
the breaths taken
say so much about the situation.
killing children in other counties
while we wait
_
my leftovers get shoved behind your
seat.
it takes a moment to stabilize.
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 12:23 PM UTC
It's a big world, yet a small one to.
So many dfferent Counties , states,
and cities, your just one life of many.
Look at the many places, faces and all the races, do you think your town is the only one with hatred?
The homeless, the hungry, the junkies and thieves, your not the only one who worries .Your one life of many.
So many unemployed people Divorces ,and Unhappy Families. Your not alone when It comes to finances.
It's a big world ,and your just one life of many.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
We can never be together but,
I wish we could.
Fatal attraction,
will always
grab the
Grim Reaper & his scythes,
attention.
But this time,
dying doesn't
look like,
an eternity of lonely nights. ,
It's
Almost,
well,
actually
it is
a
tempting thought
for a
split-slit
wrist
second.
Given the right causes.
But.
I'm here
in the
Hearse behind
you.
Playing passenger
on the
69-blood-line.
I called shot-gun.
We're way-out
on the highway home.
Only
7
more counties
2
go through.
Til I can see those,
better-places
&
your
pretty, familiar face.
May 7, 2012
May 7, 2012 at 1:23 AM UTC
I
A scream scares the day away and makes the night a dark eternity.
Mating calls lurching behind barstools talking about nothing and jumping deeper into conversation over the bovine carcass at Applebee's.
Desolate honkytonks fueled by Percocet and chlamydia, fat musicians and anthems of Beer drunkenness hanging over the toilet to ***** their soul away for a buzz.
Coal diggers and gold diggers painted in black and red and the pinks drips down their leg to a puddle of shame. Crying in the corner for a fix with their broken knees and backs and their black lungs and their pharmacies of solutions that end up being their prison. Poisoning the air with the smoke of death and masculinity with broken hands punching the walls until the blood pours.
The **** of the body and land in unison in mind, flutters from our corner of the world to the coast
then to the heavens where it again rapes. Where it forces itself upon the consciousness of a nation
That buys it up and sells it again for naut. Souls of the lost gather for your final baptism in pain, together,
Ready and willing for more.
Trailers like tombstones in the distance at the end of hollers buried beside their dignity in the mines. Eternal monuments to good enough sprouting from every seed wasted in the divine Goddess who is reduced to the ***** of Hazard and surrounding counties.
Repeat the cycle of suffering.
Churches of skeletons praying for that divine **** of death,
reap what ye sew,
Harvest of the men in plenty,
eat for your fill!
II
It has been a cold winter, and I have traveled to the land of my heroes, who live now only on the page and in spirit alike. I have bussed cross nation, gone to Boulder and Denver and dear Allen Ginsberg I found out the time. I search for the street where I can find you, curl up in your beard, hear your stories, and hitchhike with you to Nirvana. I have snowshoed high and happy with friends and have no regrets only that I didn't stay longer. Played music on the top of mountains and felt them dance under me. I have been reborn with life and friends and it is good enough. Dislocated souls connecting in the ephemeral plane somewhere between Kentucky and Colorado in dreams and though and music and poetry and body and soul.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
Oh for a world without wars!
Free of terrorists.
Where each and every one of us
Can go about our daily lives
Without any fear.
But I read somewhere
That there may be a price to pay:
Loss of Freedom.
Think of the USSR, or better still, Yugoslavia.
Ruled by rods of iron
These counties showed us facades
Of calm.
But once those dictatorships disappeared then
Those underlying differences emerged.
The Balkan States were a case in point:
When Yugoslavia went
All hell broke out!
So when I suggested that
A benevolent world government
Might cure our ills,
A warning was shot across my bows:
“Be careful what you wish for!”
For what good is “Peace”
When no one dare speak out
Or act in a “different” way?
“1984” soon springs to mind:
Droves of mindless clones
Dumbed down by drugs
And Media driven hypnosis.
Totalitarianism at its worst.
What we really need is an end to violence
And every other form of Abuse.
Free thought
Married with respect and tolerance
To our fellow men
And women.
World Peace only comes free
When the people are free too.
Freedom of the individual
Based on mutual respect
And better still
On Love.
Paul Butters
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 6:11 AM UTC
Can you believe that in some counties here in the Bay Area, a six-figure salary is considered ‘low income’? Hell, if Silicon Valley was it’s own country it would be the second richest country in the world, just behind Qatar.
So tell me why, being in such a rich part of the world surrounded by the latest technology that instantly connects you to people and resources there are kids that live on the street with no food to eat, or clean clothes to wear? Why are teachers reaching into their accounts to provide those same kids and others with tools, knowledge, wisdom, and hope to persevere and overcome these atrocious adversities? Why are communities and cultures that have been deeply rooted for generations disappearing in plain sight? Why do people live in tents and some in cardboard boxes? Why, with all the money, power, and resources at such close proximity, do “invisible communities” exist? Let’s face it, if six-figures is considered low, then the average person must be nothing.
Sustainable regenerative models have an underlying sense of belonging. If we, and willing we can, cultivate real relationships with our neighbors we can work together to create a community - a society - that is nurturing and beneficial to all.
A tree works best in a forest, not alone nor in a grove. Alone the tree can only do so much and a grove is much to similar and demanding. But a forest however is diverse and naturally connected by way of life, never taking more than than needed, but always giving more than expected. A natural ebb and flow inclusive of all in proximity and beyond.
But what do I know. I’m just a tree planting a seed among a forest that could be.
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 2:24 AM UTC