"everests" poems
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.
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 11:41 AM UTC
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.
Jan 17, 2021
Jan 17, 2021 at 7:16 AM UTC
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.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 10:32 PM UTC
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
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 11:14 PM UTC
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.
Apr 8, 2017
Apr 8, 2017 at 11:52 PM UTC
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
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC