An app for this
An app for that
An app even,
To feed your cat.

Mesmerised by mobiles
All these zombies shuffle along
Nearly getting run over
So internet throng.

Scanning with their debit cards
No time for cash
But I don’t trust these things
With their laser flash.

All this social media
Where is it going?
So much information
Toing and froing.

Good to keep in touch
And so easy to Google
Want to make a noise?
It’s better than a bugle.

Better check in on Facebook
So you all know where I am
Time to check my emails
To bin the latest scam.

But whatever happened to talking?
It’s now a forgotten art!
The cyber revolution:
This is just the start.

Paul Butters

© PB 19\3\22.

During the night, a dreadful night, a mole dug deep
deep and around my garden that I love
This cheeky mole then had the nerve to stop burrowing
and then surface to check the damage from above.
Up came his velvety head and sniffed the fresh air
parting my newly laid lawn like a digger.
Now he appears to be smiling the cheeky scoundrel
He is making the problem a whole lot bigger.
"Look what yo have done" I shouted "made a right mess
The piles of earth are everywhere with your coming and froing"
"With all due respect madam" sniffed the mole "what do
you expect when I cannot exactly see where I am going!"
"I have no map, no satellite navigation device, just my claws
I am just a mole and all that I can do is dig, I've no appliance
No shiny *****, no mechanical device, what do you expect
Honestly madam it is not exactly rocket science.
He tutted and rushed back down the hole leaving me
speechless and trying my best not to cry.
The mole had made his way underground by now next door
but my hard work was down the drain - I wonder why!

I'm working I tell my mom
staying up late at night as she thinks I'm doing homework
while I actually waste time on youtube and 9gag.com
search cultures, and histories, and groups
wanting to belong
and be a part of
a community, a group, find myself
and then I feel so selfish sitting in my room starting to pity those who don't have food
when the pity turns on my for having no sense of culture nor community
I go to school everyday wanting to learn about everything that I don't hear
about space and stars, histories, wars, and of people who belonged with friends in proximity
I can't work, I try to but I can't
I search up how to look more pretty and attract my crush
and then how we shouldn't care about looks from someone who loves to rant
I listen to punk rock, ska punk, celtic punk, and rock because I can't work
I play my trombone because I can't work but I can do music homework
I read books about history and stars because I can't work but I can learn
You can't go anywhere without good grades they say
so if only i was marked on things I wanted to learn
things I wanted to present for things I wanted to earn
I'm only 15 and don't know where this is going
and now I'm resisting the temptation to erase this whole non-poem that I'm to and froing
with info about my life that only I care about
while I procrastinate like most kids do my age
when I hear my mom shout
telling me to not stay up too late and that she's proud of me working
when I'm actually wasting my time and her dreams
so I'll get back to my can't working
ending this not-a-poem with something it's not doing- flowing

Fell heal over heads
          in love with a poet,
  he's mostly a rhyme schemer
       likes Poe and his dark Raven,
  in actuality,  I'd fancy him more if
    he were like Pablo Neruda, but I digress
I'm much accurately fashioned after Emily Dickinson
        chasing heaven's June bugs toing and froing,
we'd meet at a perfectly superfluous coffee shop
    he'll be murmuring elegiac pentameter
I'm simply looking to devour precious words,
    we'd argue about abstract destinations,  
            straight forward persuasions and
               premonitions of wayward ink allusions,
some days I want to claw mine own eyes out
               amid all that nonsensical alliteration
  others, I want to rip out embellishments
                   of his black heart's magnification,
he mutters tumult under his breath,
     states he's abundantly sickly tired of all my
         fanatical froufroutant  flourished fantasies,
albeit, we're mild mannered artistes
         of overstatement and simplification
               thus, we continue laying it on thickly
I, with my hyperbolic cuppa tea and honey,
       he's all brass tacks, no nonsense black coffee
ultimately, we reservedly seek gratification,
      envisioning who functionally makes it first
to a finished line of manifestations's publication,
           in eternity's poetic intentions and beyond

After a lot to negotiate
toing and froing
you exchanged your teeny heart
for my bag of 18-something stones

I carried it home in a hurry
much lighter than I expected
for what looked like a big cherry
it was shaking when I checked it
I worried at its odd little quivering
a bit timid and nervy
like a leaf blown from its tree
but happy to have a new owner in me

I nestled it carefully
in my mother's best white sheets
but was scared to see
it start to bleed quite a bit
not that it might die
but about what my mother would say
about the red in the laundry
and what she might tell her mother
if she got it back needing a doctor

I decided to pat it
with a towel to keep it dry
no even better
shower it each day
keep it a bit moist
sprinkle it with Eau de Toilette
every morning blow it a kiss
like having a sweet pet
to greet after I shave
I wanted to rub my hands with glee
but it needed treating with kid gloves
and exercised in carefree handling

but first I had to squeeze it
not hard in case it burst
just in the middle bit
around its plumped up waist
it felt soft and squidgy
and beat quite quickly
not like my stones

I wrapped it up in a cooler
using styrofoam
aluminium foil
and a brown paper bag...

Styrofoam is a good insulator
and will keep the love from oozing out
the aluminium foil is a heat reflector
and the paper bag  I am not sure about
but grocery stores offer them
to put your ice cream in
so it doesn't melt as fast

I had a meal of cheese on toast
then returned to check my box
your heart was not there to be seen
isolated in polystyrene
O dear I wished I'd cut a window
giving it room to see it grow

but then I spied you in the garden
painting stones to a wondrous glow
so lovely I traded back my carton
and your heart lit up inside for me

the sun rises
birds sing
cars ignite into life
sky lightens with the dawn
could be rain could be shine
people populate streets
work calls
school and errands to run
a day like any other
except today is my birthday
when this whole miracle began
the sun rising
birds singing
cars revving
sky lightening
people to and froing
for the first time
in my existence
a long time ago
it is all still a miracle
just now I don't notice so much
because it is getting closer
to it's end

Meh is what I say
When I feel that way.
It’s all in the expression:
That’s the lesson.
I ain’t a troll
‘Cos I say lol.
Our language is growing,
Toing and froing,
Ask old Mister Owen
(Our English Master back in the day).
I play these words
Along the page,
Hoping for a Golden Age
Of growth.
Not revolution, just evolution;
Some may say pollution
Even ablution.
The constitution
Of Progress.

Paul Butters

wings O
divine
                slowly

feathers manacle
the air beneath
you boundlessly
the earth trembles
beating
a sour hot tattoo

as bustle muscles
to and wither
froing going
men and ladies
mingling like
sweet
                like

salty spit like
tongues
even to enter
one tingling
mouths
                 they yaw

and pitch
i think it grossly
wonderful
and i see marked
amongst the figures
hurriedly to
mix (bile and honey)
the longing stuff
of girls
                 but

O wings lifted
a pinions to heaven
ever whiter
i yet don't
turning seamlessly
upon the moral
wind
              i
                   fly

There's a screaming in your ears,
There's an image in your mind
Of a whirling,
Spinning,
Swirling
Deep emotion.

One moment close to tears,
And then suddenly you find
You're swaying,
To-and-froing
With the motion.

It is then you must decide,
Whether what you feel inside
Is strong enough
To cause you
To let go.

Or would it be suicide?
Would you survive if you collide
With your wall?
Am I worth it?

Do you know?

Little breeze toing and froing
Little girl dancing with the leaves
Sunlight flitting thro’ the trees
Chestnuts falling
Ploughboys reaping
Hedgerows sleeping
Night owl calling
Grass so still
It’s as if it’s lost the will
To keep growing

Days and nights changing
Dappled shadows rearranging
Dance is slowing down, down
Little girl is going
When the summer slows
Farmer is reaping
Autumn shades deepening
Grass so still
As if it’s lost the will
To keep growing

..and now
there's a bit of toing-and-froing
about who gets the vaccine
and where is it going?

Political bollix if you ask me.

But it all boils down to
who has the biggest
clout.

Waking up as the sun goes up
Toing and froing life in a limbo
Burning candles both ends
Waking up not a toaster
Doesn't come with a guarantee
Shadow of a moon over a pond
Now here now not
Uncertainty of the shadow
With one follows
Shadow a silhouette by itself
Uncertainty of a silhouette
Proves how unreal
The process one daily deals
And that Mirages tried to seal
Not carried when 6 feet under
Up in flames one with Amber
Not left behind either
Statue built of illusion
To carry the legacy
So one believes
Fabric of fiction
Fable of fantasy
Visualization of vision
Inflated values given
Greatest sin of man
Pass on to the next generation
The same unreal burden
Falmily trees become chain gangs
False understanding looming over
Playing the role of the warden
Not allowing one to escape from the prison of  phantasm
Built with  walls dating back
From time immemorial

This time on September the 1st last year.. Oh yes I can remember this so vivid and clear..Well I was doing exactly what I am doing now but I managed to take a little unwanted trip somehow

As I reminisce roamin’ thru the gloamin’ amidst the purple heather..me and my sweet singing friends.. those birds of a feather..of course I wasn’t watching where I was going whilst the Black-faced ewes were a’toing and a’froing..Now there must have been rock.. it was a great big boulder and I bumped into it and almost dislocated my shoulder

So I lay seeing stars and i thought I was dying witn my pride in pieces as my agony was crying..How can I forget that wonderful walkway when I am following my treads this beautiful day ? Mind you I won’t let that happen again.. it took me a month or so to get rid of the pain..