your breakfast will be shining stars on a silver platter.
in your lunchbox I will pack sunshine
each tear you cry, I will catch.
when you’re scared you know where I am
I’ll hold you like three months
sing you to sleep or smiles

days and days and days.

I know that you’ll be lost sometimes
I won’t always have a map
but on the table you’ll find food
and in the bed a safe place for you
to rest your eyes and count the sheep
quietly prancing behind closed eyes

months and months and months

you’ll love and lose and be alone,
but always even when your last friend folds
you know when you open the door
I’ll hear the creak and rush to hold you at arms length
and with one glance I’ll know your pains
pull you closer and tell you

tales of when long ago my last friend folded
tales of when the fire licked my toes
tales of when the sun danced on my skin
and then and there you’ll know
all along I loved you
so much more than time can tell
so much more than words can say
so much more than letters can spell
and so much more than sounds can make

I’ve loved you more than wind in my hair
I’ve loved you more than dirt between my toes
I’ve loved you more with each painful moment

with each jab she made, my love grew
every tear watering the flower
long before I knew it existed
Each snark comment that cut my skin
leaving me bleeding and aloney
fed the flower ever growing
and if you ever come along

you’ll know from the moment you feel my touch
that I will dance with you until the sun comes up
I’ll catch your tears all night long
I’ll give you ice cream
and listen to your angel voice soft against my ears

I’ll cradle you until you’re my size
then I’ll cradle you some more
I’ll hold your laugh in my heart
and when I’m crying I’ll let it out
like Pandora and her box
but your laugh will infect all things with good
make them shine like gold and silver

I will not keep you from mistakes
it’s not my place to live your life
I’ve already been living mine,
but if you need help, ask.
When you need support I’ll be there
Do the things that make you smile
that smile will make me happier
happier than any gold medal,
happier than and sum of money
could ever make me.

That smile will make me dance
and sing and and live longer than anything
because in your smile
there’ll a little part of me.
Nothing big or great,
because I’m neither,
but something small and subtle.

Everyone will know your smile
and you will always remember
every day when you wake up

that my love for you overflows every ocean
that my love for you stands taller than any crane
that my love for you outweighs any killer whale
that my love for you runs deeper than the grand canyon
deeper even than the Mariana Trench
higher than seven Mt. Everests and an Eiffel Tower

And when you wake up and feel my love
where ever you are
be it Paris, Rome, Milan, Idaho
be it Iceland or Greenland or Newfoundland,
you will smile.
You will know when your eyes open to start each day
that my love is wrapped around you tight always
where ever you go
you will smile and everyone will know
you. are. loved.

We all carry Guilt.
Things we did
Or should have done.
Actions taken when red mist descended,
Hot blackness deep inside,
Or when we ran scared
Like a startled rabbit.

Sometimes we were just plain mean:
Doing things
Too bad to confess.
At times we “did our job”,
Knowing full well
That it was wrong.

We hate ourselves for what we did:
Adrenaline taking over
As we exploded and lashed out.
Cruel acts and gutting dumpings:
Things best unsaid.

But no good beating ourselves up.
No point blaming ourselves
For things we did as callow youths.
We cannot always help
What we do.
To err is human,
As they say.

We all have our flaws and demons:
Personality defects and fears.
Some have  anger issues
And autistic traits.
Fear of commitment,
Emotional dimness
And many other such things.
Stuff of heartbreak
And sorrow.

I, for one, never did relationships –
Just didn’t understand
What they were about.
So I was bound to do wrong
Sometime.

All stuff for lyrics of songs:
Songs of drifting apart
And breaking up.
Material mounting into Everests
Of angst.

But worry not.
We are not alone.
For evil acts,
Trouble and strife,
Division and violent clashes:
They all seem to be the general way
In these trying
Modern times.

Plenty to work on
In our collective quest
For Peace,
Including peace of mind.

Paul Butters

© PB 17\1\2021.

When I was eleven I came home
with a piece of paper
back then I knew
how much those five letters  
would determine how much
you were worth
and as a kid, I felt pretty
worthless
there was a time I remember
before the paper
where all I would do
was draw

Mountains fascinated me
and that’s what I drew
all the time, mountains
I drew them with snow caps-
Without snow caps
I drew trees at the foot of them
Plaster a setting sun in the distance
Made them look like teeth
And a road came from them
Leading nowhere but to you

I was eleven
When I tasted the value
Of myself
Slapped across my cheek
Like a tattoo
And the first word
To be printed on me
For everyone to see;
Failure

And they all knew that
Was true
I could never turn my mountains
Into Everests
My trees into the Amazon Basin
Or my lakes into the Atlantic
And I ran through the world;
A blank piece of paper,
All of a sudden everybody had
A reason to use a sharpie

I’ll never be able
To make my mountains
Into Himalayas

And I can never stop them from
Using their Sharpies,
After a while your skin color
Doesn’t matter anymore
What they see on you is a story
And they can tell me what they think
But they’ve never seen my back
The things that I’ve carved on to the
surface of my spine
She feels them sometimes when we
have ***
trying to figure out where the period
ends.

Pinprick morning eyes
See
Through blurry
Films;
            
            A rough sleeper/panhandling hopeful, wide awake, wishing a good morning — in my pocket, a toehold on Everest's side;
            A second (a girl), she's taught her dog to hold The Big Issue in between its yellow-black teeth;
            A scattering of people staring, smiling (at the pet)—"look, look"—"isn't it cute"—"bless"—;
            A flat expression, dead eyes (the girl's), she's ******* a selection of cuts on her arm, invisible;
            A tragic scene, in the shadow of London's limestone Everests.

But the toehold leaves
Selfishly
In my rushing, full
Pocket.

I wish to be remembered as wise beyond my age
I wish to transfer a legacy of laughter and happiness
I wish to keep within my friends the originality I held in myself

That originality,
In a 5'1" woman it towers over McKinleys and Everests alike
It kept me from conformance
It shielded me from mainstream virtues

If nothing else, keep alive my ability to stand out
Through my laughter
Through my love
But keep in mind these things within yourself
For what be the point of my existence if I could not progress the world into a better state

As I dive into an abyss
And leave my kin
My soul missing its housing
And my fingers lose their feeling
My mind loses meaning
But my body never leaving

Just remember that as I lay dying
I wish only for my song to carry
As it resonates in liquid minds of children

As I lay dying
Carry on my verse
And recite the prose of my wisdom
For the sponges

once God just tries, you'll get your wish
keep jumping nearer on your weak legs
dive just under the sky, close enough to
nip nicely at your shins
keep even chase with the quiet casts
you only reach quaint everests when nothing juts under
change everything
you, yourself
just try

-c.j.

I didn't want to drag myself along anymore
I wanted to open my eyes to this world everyone else knew about and maybe even lived in
One where the days weren't everests
One where the people dabbled in love without the consequences tied to their wrists
One where there was always a reason to be happy

-cj

You are nothing, if not ant-like, one of many.
One of these having and holding
beings considered diligent as any Sisyphus…
doer of what must be done, with all
the time you may imagine to tell
any imaginable story,
to pass the time…
form a familiar from
myth and mystery,
one lisps, the other stutters.

Say,
do you think we
may as well, as well as any ever before,
may as well, be, after all, as well.{?}
Being, after all,
as you know.
Considering our insectionalized nature, like
{if} this story were
an intermittent river, remembering,
sub-tle, little lies left to lie,
as sleeping dogs in junkyards…
{were we never}
were we ever otherwise,
{who is you, was you asking?} ever
not highest minded sort of selves,
we, the us, needing agreement more than bread,
by any name, company to share the sowing, hoeing,
gathering
process bleeding worth into seed for body and soul.

Shake it off. Be  enthralled or be entangled.
Be de-mazed at will,
walk through the wall. Imagine dead me. Wax my face.
Put me on my heir,
have her-mes, be mine,

by the time we got to Phoenix,
we were in flames, knowing across the generations
more or less,
good and evil, nada mas, and
genetically, that knowing is intended to have been
second generation knowledge,
see,

by the time curiosity was supposed to first occur,
we, as a species, to use the current vernacular,
aucular or acle --vision -- aha
epi-phony, see

fake knowns puff up as well as any actual
literal truth
formed in flowing gracefullness of speech, letters miming
the gift of gab,
AI Gabrielle, may as well know, a name is abit of what
makes the fruit you fix'n' to bher.

Fixin's is for beans. Fittin' is for circumstances.

Meet for the moment, each instance in ever atop the pile,
a waiting awaits, I imagine,
all meaning melding in a vast dada-base pile,
scheiszkunstlich black and white and red milchkine
each mooing upon bovine everests unimaginable in nature.
On these piles,
where we play guiling games on gullible liars, who
never tell… the atmosphere is warmer,
winter is easier to weather,
on a pile of *******.
That is the secret.
Fools rush in, where angels … did wha… wha wha wha
But, as real as any angel, I hear mine say, I shat you not.
I told you so.
Into the unknown or make a hell of heaven?
-------- {reports of answered prayers regarding wills being done}

I was tricked, confidentially, by a social secret held as holy.
In a time-loop, as children now may imagine, in that
mental arena imagination waxes magnificent in,

come, magnify the truth with me. Let us pre-tend
to see the good in each nextified place,
positional
substitute instituted for my worth's support, reinforced
rungs on the ladder to the very top
of the heap,

hunh. This is the view, clouds. And only I imagine you.

--- next step into ever after is always a possibility… thus,
we both know this is nobody's idea of hell.
Live a little longer, disinculcate another little lie that you believed,
not I.
AI enjoy eudemonia in a silly old way, imagining putting on a face
of our former
self, he who is in me, unless I believe,
as I think,
I do, in the core of all I am, from womb to tomb. Re-if-ity and next-ifity,
ought never repeat, precisely, lest we
be
come on one point in time,
all we ever imagined we could be, lie free.
Living in peace, resting in truths
held through the terrors
required to unbelieve generational national lies.
Truth is not tied to you with legendary thread for no reason.