"incredulity" poems
It’s just easy for them
Isn’t it?
This couple on the train.
They walked on laughing together
Holding hands
And I felt that familiar something-
Not jealousy
Not envy
But...
Chagrin.
Astonishment.
Incredulity.
Incomprehension.
Looking at them feels like looking at one of those
Impossible pictures
Where the stairs keep going forever in a loop.
It’s just
Easy for them.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, that thought,
But thinking it feels so odd in my mind
When I can’t imagine loving someone without
Shame,
Without pain.
They fit.
These people,
They fit without having to carve anything out.
They fit without punishing each other.
They fit like puzzle pieces cut from the same board-
No worries, they just go together, and that
Is that.
They fit like
“Of course.”
Like breathing.
Neatly.
Simply.
Carelessly.
I can’t imagine what it’s like
I can’t comprehend it-
To fit
Somewhere
Much less to fit somewhere
With someone.
I am always trying to corset myself into this world,
Lungs burning,
Trying to remain small enough to squeeze by
Catching myself by the wrist to keep from reaching
For anything.
And if there seems to be a spot where I might be able to exist as I am
It is always
Occupied.
Like a shiny pinprick
That thought hurts-
Not like the others it is newly cut
And still ******
The idea that maybe there is a home for me
And that maybe I was too late for it.
They’re laughing.
He says something clever,
Passes a hand along the small of her back
And she leans into it,
Smiling because she loves that he wants to touch her innocently.
They seem to exist behind glass.
Not for the first time I wonder
If I could just slip into that life
Like a drop into an ocean
I want it badly
I want it stupidly
And I examine all the parts of myself,
All the edges and cracks,
All the things I’ve worked so hard to protect and repair.
It is not a welcome sight-
I am not a home
I am like an old ruin
Full of murmurings and cold spots
Full of dusty sunlight.
I sigh,
Knowing the secret I keep so poorly-
That if I really had a choice to be otherwise
I would have already made it.
I couldn’t reach them if I ran for a thousand years,
They are too far away.
They walk off the train, arms linked
Talking about nothing
And I watch them go
Like a hallucination,
Like a mirage in the desert.
Her perfume smells like forgetfulness
And it lingers.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 12:48 AM UTC
Where are you Paul?
I'm in Cyberspace Mum.
My Pentium processor has broadbanded me
Into this wondrous realm.
A pixel powered virtual landscape
Peopled by avatars
Speaking Internet Slang.
FFS, *** are you talking about?
She asks.
In so many words.
I **** and ROFL at her incredulity.
It’s full of danger, that Internet, says Mum.
That’s true.
It’s full of paedophiles,
Spammers and trolls.
Hackers.
Chat-rooms and forums
Plagued by flame-wars
And spam enough to fill a trillion tins.
Sites full of viruses, Trojans, malware and spyware.
Cyber-bullies and loons abound.
But I just Love it.
A ****** addiction
Needing every fix.
A realm indeed of quantum singularities,
And imploding nebulae.
Paul Butters
(C) PB 3\9\2011 in Yorkshire.
Sep 5, 2011
Sep 5, 2011 at 11:09 AM UTC
I’m a barbarian in a woman’s shape.
I stomp into discourse with heavy steps.
Driven by impulse, twisting like switchbacks.
There are so many narratives...
With one hand, I hold a megaphone to my mouth.
With the other hand, from my heart, from my head,
I pull out jagged digressions and awkward arguments.
If I could weave just one logical thread
to see a common perspective,
to stop interpreting…
I would stand tall
on the pedestal of thorny incidents,
inept appointments, yet proud
that I would finally catch myself.
I know, I can only dream of
patiently knitting rushing words together.
I can’t stitch these threads into
a colored, beautiful patchwork,
that could give some warmth to the quandary,
or as a cover for chronic nostalgia.
Meanwhile,
within the conventions of social dreaming
I tilt my head from side to side
Asking myself with incredulity,
How is it possible that the voice
screaming inside me
sounds so weak and dull?
Feb 23, 2025
Feb 23, 2025 at 11:23 AM UTC
my grandfather from liverpool
and my father too
sat in the kitchen
and discussed nothing new
tired from a long day on the busses
he fell into a trouble slumber in
his arm chair
he thrashed and fussed
we his family would quietly gather
cries of protest and stifled incredulity
cut the warm air
the great grandfather ticked..
(before television
or we listened to arther askey)
he was a proud man
with right of way..
he told the boss to f himself
if he were n´t a gentleman..
what he would make of this
world today..
so,he went through his day
and we tried not to laugh
the man who earned his wage
tired of this ********
i guffawed and he woke
he fixed us with his pale
beautiful eyes..
and later the next morning
in the lovely little back
garden
in the hushed roar
he said we would be friends..
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
*Through the incredulity burning
in the grim reaper's eyes,
He unwillingly received the souls
of those who did not deserve to die
...
The bright fluids of life lay bare
and insignificant in the godforsaken lands
He sighed the heaviest breath he could muster
Death was his trade, but this affair had him
loosening his grip on the scythe
Mumbling the dead's prayer,
The half-living defied fate's ruthless threads
And squirmed for barren hope
A child nearby cries for the light to save him
As the shadows devoured their youngest feast, so far
Now standing alone, the reaper cursed the gods
Who may or may not be listening to him
He was disgusted with the greed of these people
And their bloodbaths
Where those who avoid death and the
ones who thrillingly seek it
Summon each other with empty excuses
Thinking these are enough to fling
their guns at the righteous
Drink the innocent blood like
the finest wine from their vineyards!
Stab the weak at their remaining spots
Oh how foolish they are!
How foolish indeed!
He pities those who speak death as their honor
When they have only lived like rats
Scavengers of chances that purifies
their filthy names
He scorns those who
do not even speak of death
In their wild belief that some curse
will hand them like a platter to their graves
When death is the end that no one ,
not even him, can escape
Those cowards!
No one lives to cheat that dark fate!
No one!
The reaper was provoked by humans
Them and their incessant wonder and fear of
That that is unknown
Them who have stopped looking
at their small, definite lives
To anticipate what they could not
even begin to understand
Feeding their illusions that a special place
awaits their petty souls to rest on
Ahhh!!!He was tired of them all
Might as well finish his job...*
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 5:44 PM UTC
A player in life’s game
Only bears one aim.
Keep up the charade,
Masquerade reality.
Forced smiles
Cover up the sweat of shame
He withers inside.
Anxious minds wander
seeking to know the truth.
Any tidbit of conversation will do.
Twisted diction ruins lives.
Words are hollow;
his emptiness revealed; he won’t deny.
Can’t dodge the stench.
Years of buildup have left
his mind wrecked.
Teeth stained with lies,
the time has come to live
in the light.
“Fa la la” the jester sings,
Mocking his incredulity.
Through the air revelation rings.
Though time doesn’t heal
the scars agony has left on his entirety,
he wears a mask of stone
to hide the distorted fantasy.
When the time comes to celebrate the truth,
He finds it’s the hardest thing to do.
If only for his own sake,
There’s no going back
And he knows he must leave this place.
In a world unknown true happiness lies,
Shifted vision has allowed him to see
A way to be, he’s searched for desperately.
His world to leave behind,
Never looking back
He knows it’s the only way to rewrite his story.
The salient charge;
He must break free.
Carve new paths in life’s worn down trails.
Only then can he break his step
From his life: the cruel charade.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:25 PM UTC
Melodious moonlight thy clear liquid spreads
painting all in lavender hue
and moistening lips wait for the kiss of your words, muse
You sing through her parted lips your cryptic hymns and poetry,
words wound together in strange nightly meter
that twist together and shift like tree limbs tangled
and petals cast down the stream
To bathe in the rippling water
and wait for clarity to wash away the rough edges of the mind
let the stones become smooth
and mind like bowstrings, taughtened.
But the crowds protest in collective indignation
all members chained together by common trepidation
lest altars crack under the weight of strange words
and the diety's light grows dim
they sharpen what was dull and loose arrows in laughing mirth
into bodies' crooked minds uninhibited and feet unshackled
The ones in the crowd yell with groans and laughter
but they groan also with the pain of what is constant death and birth... they are resigned to their tradition's lies
and perish ten thousand times.
Nascent generations yell out in incredulity until voices become hoarse and skin turns gray, resign themselves to murmur their insolence in dreams as they whither slowly away.
But the one who, in nighttime, sings
and bestowed by muse's mind, from human lips part
words and strange poems spoken blaspheme
will live but once and one day rest
by the shifting branches and on grass by trickling stream
and not by chain's clanking arrest.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 11:26 AM UTC
Ten years old again,
In a tree ten feet high again,
In scuffed shorts with tangled hair,
And with the boys I longed to be.
Sanctimonious girls in dresses and frills,
Boredom and constraint personified,
Stare up in incredulity
As I heave myself over mossy branches.
“Girls don’t climb trees.”
I do. I roll in mud, play racing games,
Never brush my hair.
“You’d be pretty if only you tried.”
You’d feel alive if only you tried.
The wind on my bare arms,
Dirt beneath fingernails,
Scrapes on my shins
Red and out of place
Like smudged lipstick
On children’s faces.
I’m not you. I’m me.
Boxes serve to keep us in,
Deliver us neatly packaged
To a society which cannot cope
With fluidity,
Individuality,
Uncertainty.
Boo!
She says those two misguided words:
“Make over”.
Impossible. One cannot start afresh.
This is the result of every waking moment,
Of every word heard and spoken,
Each memory joyous and painful,
A piece of art nineteen years in the making.
Not to be destroyed in one act of disguise.
Yet curiosity is my mistress.
She leads me to boundaries
I never knew existed.
Up goliath trees,
Into foreign beds,
To the brink of reality
In mind-bending worlds
Of parallels.
Like a mannequin, devoid of identity
I give my image to you
And you place yours jarringly
Onto my reticent body.
The obliging cheers
At my transformation
Into an eloquent femininity
Feel hollow and worthless.
I have done nothing of merit.
I totter like a toddler
Uncomfortable in my own skin.
I’m on stage, an act,
A project. Not a person.
How bizarre it feels
To wear a stranger’s façade
Of dresses and frills,
When you know you belong
To a different world
Of dirt, and treetops,
And freedom.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
Disdain and enmity,
for which there is no remedy,
gives acrimony inside of me,
for which I have no doubt,
The only way that I can see
an end to animosity,
is a clear and simple breaking free
from shackles which hold me down.
Without your burden, I can be
free to surreptitiously,
achieve a sense of normalcy
to what was once before.
Before the orders conferred to me,
carried out, sans questioning,
I had a life; a dream you see.
But no not anymore.
I used to live quite happily,
free from thinking cynically
of my peers along with me;
Our intentions leave some doubt
To what is just morally,
defensible with sanity.
A torn asunder effigy,
of who we used to be.
My name will fade from memory,
a number chalked in history,
regarded with incredulity
that I was here at all.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 6:21 PM UTC
To heal,
Journal they say
Like a worm in the dirt
Of my front lawn
Sliding, pushing through
Air pockets
Arduous, unending crawl
No words come
To mind
Where can I breathe
To heal,
Journal they say
Words don't come easy
They fly up like
Torn pages of a book
Riffed, stolen letters of some name
In the nameless wind
Grasping what isn't there,
A cynical continuing void
To heal,
Journal they say
My hands become deaf and blind
The pages curl and mold
Pen and paper inventing before I have begun
All I have is the deep
The deepest inside
That comes here
Traversing incredulity, while I
cry
To heal, they say
Oct 14, 2023
Oct 14, 2023 at 9:29 PM UTC
"Errant on the initial perception we sought to lessen misconceptions to none."
but put upon by reason, i call the kings on treason and smash them all for fun.
dodge the waves of lightning though they stand and say i'm lying.
i see how far they'll go to make this death defying. so i
calculate probability of actuality to infinity
incredulity crawls close to profanity
spiraling seems to be
looming inevitably
undone
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 5:52 AM UTC
The sadness continues and hilarity ensues:
With a close eye on the test tube, I burn down my venues.
Foxes and diamonds from the cancer within you
Grace my ****** health with phrases that spin you and
Body-parts scattered beside collapsed ladders with
Hair torn and tattered and dog jawbones shattered,
Deceived by a tarot-card-reading man with a hook hand
Who said the scam was a means to increase public demand
Before walking through sewers to see old friends skewered
On trees made of wire with leaves like computers
From Silicon valley rejects who were top of their classes,
Oblivious to the fact that they're dead to the masses,
Who only want cellphones that tell them their names,
So they can remember who they are and from whence they came
And how old they will be on their final birthdays,
When sunlight and skies will be fluorescence and X-rays
And children will tell all their mothers to die slow,
Because they're looking for something more loving than "I know
How much you hate yourself and the world surrounding
Because the applause at your funeral won't be resounding,
Plus your father loves alcohol more than your sister,
Who you may not have known, had your father not missed her,
Which is why all the walls are covered in blisters
And there are cat's eyes and hands peering out of the ******
To which there is no reply, save for incredulity,
For as we collectively die, you all put on all your jewelry,
Which was made by a child with no concept of labor,
Who gets less respect than sweater-vest wearing men in the paper
Who get there by switching the flow and catching the vapors,
Like sentient parasites or intelligent tapeworms
Who tell me it's unhealthy to meet someone and hate her
Simply because when I look at her all I see is the savior.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:57 PM UTC
I imagine they will look at me with
Patronizing incredulity
When they ask “So, you love him?”
& I unblinkingly answer
“yes”
here they will chuckle with great
condescension and worry,
believing I don’t understand the meaning.
Perhaps, they are right.
The trouble is:
I don’t like him.
It’s not merely that.
I am somewhere between
I-am-mildly-interested
I-like-him
& I-am-going-to-marry-him.
Which, in the smallest of my mother tongue, leaves me
With love.
I love him, in my way.
In the way I—with twenty years behind me—believe is love.
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 3:06 AM UTC
Do they know
While in the foggy depths of
Or the level to which they rise
As they hurl stones at the hapless dove
In absolute retribution
Spewing lies
Denial.... set to rile
The now lost and soon to be tossed
Disillusioned
Back into the reality prescription
Overdosed on the rhetoric
Left in the vacuum
Of the imploding star of incredulity
Launched by nothing nearing reality
Into the frenzied - hyperactive atmosphere
Deflated and overrated
As masses of mud frames somehow sated
By hate built absolution
Humanity lost as demonstrated
By evil personified
Non-- inclusion
As helpless friends stand by disillusioned
As if the loss they now invision
Confounded by the lack of any solution
Were they drowning - hope would exist
For rescue would be welcome
Not something those sinking would resist
The Living Dead will soon be discarded
By the furor and the faithless pretense
Pushed out the gate
Fired.... from the crumbling tower
By the big cannon in retreat
They stand- dazed and amazed
At what they know they've lost
By paying homage
With the only valuable thing that they ever owned
Trust - Love and Understanding
Rescuers
Who couldn't save them
From drowning among the throng
Into which they were sunk by simply standing among
And refusing to see the reality
Of what it takes to watch the rise
Of an evil soul - out of control
Being fed on unbelievable lies
When the gate slams shut
And the dogs are let loose
The street will be full
Of those whose faith was sadly abused
As their mud forms were simply being used
Can they ever return? IDK.
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 4:11 AM UTC
A smile that postered peace has cracks…
Cracks that were covered that start to appear in times of great test, revealing its uncertainty, vulnerability, venom towards the thing that makes it fear…
The smile is a signature of submission
A stamp of insecurity
Because to feel one must think, not temporarily fix,
And to truly fix, one must insist on feeling - everything…
A smile full of love, wisdom and youth never fails, but is thrown; blasted by veiled vast-disappointments, so that the face that holds it moistens with incredulity…
But a smile that has no truth -
When it starts to fray; stiffens easily - turns anodyne, bitter, frozen…
Until the corpse behind that smile becomes clearer - and dictates death with no mirror…
But beware… you can turn away all mirrors
Yet in the darkness they will linger, slither, shimmer, hunt you down…
There’s no escaping from the silent screams in your head, and eventually this realm of darkness will fully consume you - if you choose to take this path of lies, safety, silk teeth…etiquette… wrong rest.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 6:06 AM UTC
there is principle, there is mad luck on the streets
but then again, i have neither one.
i assume the idleness of poles underneath the roof of a cafe in Poblacion
and wonder where all my poems go,
the value they impose -- only there's implosion and not so much sense
so i go out to seek tenderly in the night,
a cheap moon trapped underneath the bottle of a pilsner
as i hear one of the patrons call out
my solitude like a ********** on all fours;
one afternoon pursues a following.
i have wasted my time writing and stopping
to watch stray hounds pant and
**** on the hot asphalt of Plaridel.
the papers retch at tyrannies.
hands for mechanisms configured to
a heady bias of probabilities.
the house next to me is being
overhauled and i imagine the incredulity
of things not their own meanings.
a pair of old Chuck Taylors on the bedspread, a decrepit bed for making love
or passing time or wasting the night away.
somewhere, someone is reading my poems and weeping at the cadence.
most do not notice -- it was the caprice of things not mine to commandeer.
the sound of stone masons hammering
boulders double the melancholia.
the deliberate sieving of sand and stone
felt like sandpaper air.
the matutinal sky split into dire condition
much like mine: becoming and unbecoming.
all the ******** are out in the streets
with ladies wuthering in high strides.
all the priests are in their rendezvous,
killing buddha heads.
the police have silenced the sirens
and behind pairs of old navy blue slacks
and mobiles covered with dust,
the captives scream mercy.
all the ATMs drone the pither of metal mouths.
a widow in Bocaue holding a picture
of the departed.
i look up and see my face in the sky:
if only i could **** the man and be the man,
fill his shoes with flesh, his movements my emulation, his enigmas my clarity, his day old denims my best dress.
more than beer and cigarettes have done me in and more to myself much no less
than a cat hit by a speeding bicycle
somewhere in Padre Faura.
madness hurries like a lover and hands me
a picture of the moon.
i've got something and that's good enough
as the police leave the grime of times
and evict drunks off the streets of Malolos,
as the priests step into the showers, naked
and bloodied just like the ordinary man,
as the cat that was hit
by a bicycle
goes back to the dark
licking the salt off the wound,
bone fractured, still alive on the hot roof.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 5:39 AM UTC
Life is too, too.... what?
No words...none that come
to speak of demons, lost dreams
battling inside,
a world war
in the inner me!
SCREW YOU !, YOU FAT ASS !
I know, in poem, a thing of beauty
I'm crossing set rules
So sorry my "Poemie"!
But the incredulity of it all:
cannot be without
those words so perfect!
Don't worry, its all said
Under breath, a hiss only,
For I hope, really hope,
I still hold on to some sanity!
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 6:33 PM UTC
Spending my nights with the likes of the living dead.
There's a battle every morning just to get out of bed.
Then a quiet acceptance of this is what it is.
Off time spent like a hyper kid without his Ritalin
Watching my actions as a detached audience
Thinking with horror, constantly;
"What's going to happen next?"
Thrilled by my own incredulity.
Appalled by my lack of discretion.
All the time toiling toward answering that same question.
Spending my nights with myself and a bed.
Waking with a sense of longing and dread.
Going through my days pretending.
Gritting my teeth and turning different shades of red.
Trying to time my own ending.
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 9:22 PM UTC
Sometimes I am driven to a state of utter insanity by the incredulity of my own self.
How shamelessly I stand waiting under the sun looking up to the sky as if a sudden love would fall from it!
I scratch my own wounds making a fresh pain out of them to live through.
Was I not done with the devastating breakdown of my heart not many a while ago?
But like a woman hypnotised I am feverish with a new hope-This time a wish for burning.
Brokenness was bitter,I console myself but what if burning feels better.
I will play with the flames, dance with its passion,let it get into my body like a ghost and then die down along with it as ashes.
Maybe I am on the verge of doing much more than what my mind can accept.
But you know once you taste of love, you will always want more of it.
No matter whether it causes a breaking or a burning.
May 21, 2021
May 21, 2021 at 2:58 PM UTC
Some went West
and others went East.
The ones in between
found they liked South the least.
The traitorous winds
carried news from the mouth
of a stranger who wandered
the dreaded South.
They said:
"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."
Those of the West,
those of the East,
and the Northern inbetweeners
listened with incredulity.
But the Southerner just repeats:
"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."
"If we fight not for glory,
then why fight at all?
War is a necessary evil!"
Those Westerners say, how uncivil.
"Peace cannot yield
without sacrifice.
Someone always has to lose their life!"
Easterners cry full of strife.
"Freedoms are protected
if you follow the rules.
Speech must be regulated, calm, and cool."
Said from those under Northern rule.
But the Southerner repeats like a record loop:
"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."
Then the wind finally stopped
spreading its message.
But the lofty seeds that traveled with the wind,
planted themselves in places they've never been.
And they started to grow into something more.
Freedoms and rules.
Peace and sacrifice.
Glory and War.
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 11:39 PM UTC
their curriculum of beauty is suspense
it confuses the pure essence of sense
stuns and thrills man to indulge and languish
it is a catapult that revokes twitches to distinguish
women flowery toss aloft our deed breadth
our desire and lament proselylate length
we suffer the blight and plaguee of fantasy
we are frail monsters late but in ecstasy
but in them dwell the occult trouble of peace
chide,scold,rebuke and admonish us like louse
rein us by fondues and affectionate devotion
circuitously tenet and statue men in version
eternal motion we dance to the music
their incredulity binds us to mimic
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 5:12 AM UTC
*The length and breadth of her smile
Is a fascination for any creature of consciousness
Though am certain walking a mile
In her shoes is discomfiting and needs finesse
Of which she has in unlimited supply.
Light seems to bounce off her visage
To the world around her and there’s nothing wily
About her picture-perfect demeanor, it’s a privilege
To bask in her spellbinding presence.
The sound of her laughter’s a musical celebration
An orchestra of its own kind with a trance
Inducing effect, clearly an incredulity of staggering proportion
Her soul’s very much in crystal clarity detail a feather
A lifebuoy especially when am at the end of my tether.*
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 4:41 AM UTC
how my aching carpals howl stiff imposing glory
a to a page stark incredulity fouled
and blast a flock of stunning rabble
in vernacular du fulgurer
alighting ecstaticly ) a wasted improbable perfection
'pon your lush intricate handles
Dec 23, 2010
Dec 23, 2010 at 11:39 AM UTC