"inflexible" poems
Memories can become blurry, over time,
like underdeveloped photographs,
or incomplete, like sunlight through blinds.
Our lives move ever forward,
like the inflexible patterns of stars.
Once fevered and immediate events
recede, with frightening, doppler effect,
as remembered yesterdays,
become forgotten yesterdays.
New Haven was abuzz. The hotels were booked and moving trucks had taken every free parking space for miles. Last Sunday was freshmen move-in day and 1,554 freshmen moved into their Yale residences. It’s one of our favorite days of the year. The hubbub of freshmen moving, lunching, shopping and later, seeing off their departing parents, created a delicious emotional chaos that we watched unfold, like a Greek chorus.
The movie ‘Love Actually’ begins and ends with montages of people greeting friends, family and loved ones at Heathrow airport - it’s emotional and heartwarming. Move-in days are a lot like that - with their gordian knots of beginnings and endings. My parents were nervous and emotional on my freshman move-in day - as was I - but we all tried, desperately, not to show it.
Welcome to New Haven freshmen, everything’s beautiful, but you’ll get too busy to enjoy it much.
We upperclassmen move in tomorrow.
Aug 24, 2023
Aug 24, 2023 at 1:20 PM UTC
He's coming down the tracks, grinding all the gears
The cold steel rails he runs, inflexible, no fears
Engine whines and steam combines, so screams, and disappears
Down the highway of conviction, the past, now in arrears
More coal, more oil, into the furnace, as boiler glows, it seems
All of what he has, he is, is poured into his dreams
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 8:32 AM UTC
crown jellyfish,
i want you for my own,
to constantly float and hover
on my ceiling.
it seems to be too much to ask
the transparent glory
the delicate tendrils
the secretive nature
why do you want to hide
in the seas?
predator and prey
instead of being
a distraction for me?
i want you to go against
your nature
remake your breath
forego your nourishment
and glow for me, instead
why is the world
so unyielding,
crown jellyfish?
so inflexible and unkind
sticking to its earthly rules?
for me you would be
a thing of beauty
not just a creature
trying to survive
but this cannot be so
instead i must mimic you
use you as inspiration
and create new
t h i n g s
it's a shame, really.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 8:10 PM UTC
So much it wants to say,
so much it wants to speak.
My inflexible tongue,
useless and weak.
like blank pages
it ***** and flutters.
as if so much
it wants to utter.
It invites me to
explore and scroll.
I need a pen for
my unwritten soul.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
Back in my teenage college years
I was told about “Autistic kids”
Who lived in worlds of their own,
Seeing things through weird and wonderful specs
In social isolation,
Frightening in its completeness.
At sixty six I since have learned about many
Of their “traits”:
Their obsessions, inflexible routines and
Panic
At all change.
Their inability to read
Emotions or social cues
Or innuendos
Or irony.
I have worked with those with Aspergers,
Colleagues, friends and clients –
Indeed with people all over
The Autistic Spectrum.
And the main thing I have learned
In all these years
Is that in my own way…
I am one of them.
Paul Butters
© PB 1\10\2018.
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 9:11 AM UTC
You are made of stone.
As are we all.
We are all sculptures,
sculpted by the world.
But what the world will not tell you is
you are a masterpiece,
sculpted by the Sculptor.
You were made good,
your splendor carved by the Creator,
even before His creation.
The Almighty knew you,
even before a scentence
spoke the world into existance
in an instant.
He knew every chisel, ever groove, every crease,
etched in His image.
The world had convinced you
that you have a heart of stone,
but this is not so.
Though your exterior may be
as rough, inflexible, and ridged
as a rock,
your heart is written in blood
and laps against your rigorous appearances.
Your heart,
my counterpart,
is not made of stone.
It is a roaring sea,
of soul and emotion you have left alone,
and it longs to break free.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 9:37 AM UTC
Wide-eyed, piercing contemplation…newborn.
Meeting my gaze, reading my thoughts…you want nothing.
Depth
Focused, deliberate…toddler.
Intently pressuring us to submit…you want what you want!
Concentrated
Fun-loving, cute…8-year old.
Extrovert, star…you know what you want!
Gregarious
Willful, unyielding…pre-teen.
Confusion, puberty…you do what you want!
Inflexible
Solo, driving…teen-ager.
Wandering, searching…you’re not sure what you want.
Rootless
Gone, missing…young adult.
Unknown, mystery…I don’t know what you want.
Mourning
Renewed, home…NOW.
Unlimited, enthusiastic…we’re creating what we want.
Love
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 2:04 PM UTC
Requisite deliverance delights impatient souls
So inquisitive in their unmindful natures
Compulsion extracts the accumulation of indulgence
Characteristic in all of their features
Marked persuasion gratifies their inflexible needs
So amusing on every occasion
Never diminishing their vigorous attempts to hold
To everything without any patience
To assume any position of charitable defense
Would be slanderous to your own name
So you laugh hysterically at the clever simplicity
Of beating them at their own game
Indignant responses from these impatient souls
Are incredibly few and far between
As they are, too busy making new impatient demands
For their minds to understand what they have seen
Patience may hinder the quick granting of your heart’s desires
However, impatience can make one look brainless
So unless you would rather be the brunt of a joke
Be patient, it will be painless
Jul 16, 2010
Jul 16, 2010 at 6:23 PM UTC
Sweet little one, so young and willing
Fill my rusty nail with another round
Cause I am comfortably numb on my way to Southtown
And I am making a killing on these college towns
The refuge that I find these days
Is bad habits and darker skin
But I've grown too inflexible to come back in
And far too old to change my ways
Play another round of Don and Glenn
Close it out with the man in black
Snap the guitar case, I'm headed back
To where I ain't been in in I don't know when
The White City, she ain't what she used to be
And the wind today is dark and cold
My heart is young, but my eyes are old
Grown old from things unsaid and unseen
Hotel bar and hockey on TV Sweet
little blue-eyed wonder
One more draw, and you'll pull me under
For tonight at least, we'll both feel free
I'm comin' to a place
where I don't know If I'll turn left or head right
Because there's not a soul in sight
And I can't figure out which way to go
So I'll take a drag and take a breath
And drive west through the night and snow
It will be warmer in the West, I know
Cause this town just feels like death
Nineteen hours, drove straight through
The desert is dark and cold as hell
The darkness came along, as well
I light a cigarette and think of you
All alone in a crowd
Too tired to sleep,
too hungry to eat
Silence when I'm speaking out loud
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 2:38 PM UTC
I have run out of words
Here I am on my very own
Nothing to say
A lot to observe
Trying to make sense of the nonsense
Struggling to locate the symmetry of the self
Promiscuous feelings confusing everything
Provocative thoughts tempting the heart
Pretentious blasphemies insulting the soul
Overwhelming ego’s cacophony
Forcing the slow brewing of mixed feelings
One big *** to mix them all
Quietly observing and appreciating what it is
Attentive to the Universe messages
Resisting the resistance to what it is
Making a conscious effort to go with the flow
Getting deep into the being
Silently conversing with the soul
Free of pretends and inflexible principles
At peace with what it is
Unconditionally loving the self
Nov 16, 2010
Nov 16, 2010 at 12:22 PM UTC
I have sat too long with stars in my eyes
With hopes of staving off the darkness
And yet I found myself one day
Surrounded
Pressed on all sides by a void
That was heavy with emptiness
I wondered how nothing could have such weight
How silence could pound on my eardrums with frantic insistence
Like a two-year-old in a temper tantrum
Out of control and impossible to ignore
As I sat blinking the spots from my vision
I had wanted calm
And instead I found more anxieties
Monsters lurking in my peripherals and the quiet of the night
Worries that stood waiting to ****** me the moment I was alone
I am easy prey
And I was soon caught and bound
Tethered to my bedpost when all I wanted was to run
I never bothered resisting my capture
I never bothered trying to escape
I sat staring out my window
Wondering what normal people do and how they seem to smile
How they find the stamina to survive rainy days
While I droop like a neglected daisy
Unable to stand up and face the morning
When my brightness has been forgotten and allowed to fade
I have been bending
And bending
And bending
And my spine has begun to protest
My vertebrae have grown to resent this inflexible pushing
Starry-eyed, I prayed for compromise
And thought I heard it whisper in the darkness
Only to be let down when I realized it was my own voice
Whispering
Supplying the sounds I wanted
Trying to fill the emptiness with something lighter weight
Apr 21, 2012
Apr 21, 2012 at 4:24 AM UTC
Deteriorated configurations that are
neither of consecutive methods
or contorted reflections,
it's upon the eye line of those who look perplexed.
For what is slumped like tired unimportance,
is neither an inflexible road,
for nothing is
either invariable or contorted
It's just a view that each takes.
Me I'm like the reed,
both woven in a paradox
of motions.
For who sees a contortionist
that's neither of each
or the other.
Riffling upon the aspects of my decisive
displacement that catches
nither the truth or the lie.
You may catch the second,
or minute,
but beyond the mirco filaments
that linger between variable glimpse
that pass.
Is more than constructive tendrils
of a lifetime of consequential
amendments or defaming the
consequential understanding
that nothing plays by the rules..
Nov 21, 2020
Nov 21, 2020 at 5:04 PM UTC
Stubborn as I am
Obstinate as I may appear to be
Determined to just be
Inflexible to restrain
Rarely looking back
Unconcerned of tomorrow
Forever in the now
Mischievous with rules
Impishly laughing to the “I”
Adventurously defying the “am”
Daringly trying out
Frightening sometimes
Intimidating from time to time
Constantly changing
Eternally living
Perpetually reinventing the “I”
Always embracing the “am”
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 12:34 PM UTC
Sometimes I'm over and often in
My crying jail
Like a hand of a corporate body
Encompassing both belonging
To that sadness.
An inflexible realness
Forcing eyes
To speak
Against that malignant silence
Upon that lower lip,
Forcing that bloodcurdling
Inner scream to be
An outer space song
When it's pushed through fractured teeth
Into a totally weird reality
Like a shadow of
An incomprehensible dream
With inlaid hopes
This reality slipping out
When I awake alone
To nurture my love
In my painful freedom
Oct 8, 2011
Oct 8, 2011 at 7:22 AM UTC
Sometimes I'm over and often inside
My crying jail
Like two spiritual hands
Encompassing a corporate body,
Both belonging
To that irreversible sadness.
An inflexible realness
Forces my eyes
To speak
Against that malignant silence,
Situated upon your lower lip.
Moreover, it forces my bloodcurdling
Inner scream to be
An outer space song,
When it's pushed through fractured teeth
Into a totally weird reality
Like a shadow of
An incomprehensible dream
With inlaid hopes.
This reality is slipping out,
When I awake alone
To nurture my love
In my painful freedom.
Dec 17, 2011
Dec 17, 2011 at 5:22 PM UTC
She tells me it takes time,
but what is time?
The passing of moments
that turn into hours
that make up the days
that stretch into weeks
that fill up the months
that linger as years?
It takes time to heal.
I cut my arm once.
It was on purpose.
Deep enough to need stitches
but I didn’t see a doctor.
Instead I watched time pass.
Time was red blood flowing
Into slowly clotting drying blood
Into stiff inflexible scab
Into peeling, pusing dead skin
Into pink jagged itchy new skin
Into scar, also known as memory.
It takes time to forgive.
My fingers run over that scar
and time stands still
as it rushes through my brain:
Time is in my mind’s eye
Four-year old me slipping on glasses
for the first time,
Seven-year old me slipping on glasses
after they were slapped off and shattered, again,
Twelve-year old me slipping on glasses
after they were slapped off and shattered, again,
Sixteen-year old me slipping on glasses
after they were slapped off and shattered, again,
Twenty-one-year old me slipping on glasses
after they were shattered for the last time;
I blink at the clock
and see a life-time has passed in thirty seconds.
It takes time.
And some days it feels like
it was all such a very long time ago.
And some days my heart seizes
like it did at the moment it happened.
It takes time; but what is time?
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 11:14 AM UTC
The red velvet sun, too anxious to peer over the horizon
Finds solace in gently tempering the colors of the sky
But it is bound to rise,
As it is inflexible in deciding whether or not too.
So when it does
It dawns in fire.
The sunrise, rising
Dances with melancholy grace
In front of an audience who has seen her worn face
Countless amounts of times.
Who have fallen in love with her poise
Countless amounts of times.
She rises to the same men,
Apathetic to their sincere approaches,
Because she had always withered their ambition
And parched their lips,
Before kissing them
And when she concludes her performance
And her partners lay satisfied
She goes out to smoke,
But instead,
Finds herself wandering the streets
Allowing all the obscure shadows
To muffle her lovers
And let them fall asleep
Because as things go,
The sun never sleeps,
She only sleeps with.
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 2:10 AM UTC
There exists
such a distorted need
to be inflexible and stagnant
Not allowing change...
Dangerously
Coming close to becoming
a "caricature of our former glorious selves"
How sad...
that it happens…
but even worse …
that it still does not
ignite change.
It must be agonizing
To be driven by the fear
of appearing weak
or too radical
or loosing perceived powers
or social placements.
Suffering through spiritual implosion
dreading condescension
or rejection.
By peers
let alone
From a creator
That they barely believe in…
I wish there was
really
something I could do
to help.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 9:36 AM UTC
Internet ***********
Some things you get for free
With hints of bums and holes
And bunches of lovely language
A mental spelunker
I am mad when I see people
Inflexible in matters of casual lust
Who blink back in boredom
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 6:34 AM UTC
a dance of dizzy precision
vision clipped like the moon
with no hindsight, with no foresight
with "business, as usual"
i cannot bear to swallow
another one of your highly reactive
chemical reactions that
bursts out of the stopper
into temporary moments of anger
reeling bait like words
hooked; gumless and bleeding with splintered steams, then,
you speak to me
of treaties, of proceedings, of compromise
you do not what compromise is
i wonder into your open mouth
why you pull away first
you plead for being
drunk on inflation and an ego like a broken thumb
cause you was craving a drink and a hit
for no reason
sipping up liquor leaks from
the roof of your mouth
like raw running yolk
purging pallid spaces between the jeans and the belly
"business, as usual"
a business of
dropping numbers like flies
but it will not matter
the difference between 89 and 98
10 pounds
plummets into a mouth of some savage beast
who gnaws away at my bones ******* the meat
i stand calcified
without collagen,
inflexible
I will keep feeding the beast, today
Today, a kink in the rhythm of some machine
whirling, cranking, spitting out
blades of a tongue pressing stealing into inter
locking steel
Startled, I awake to “business, as usual”
i cannot flex steel tounge
i cannot push flesh down
i cannot comprehend a home that should be
how it could be how
home stitched up home stitched scars
a home with the worst air pollution in new york
how this effects me, no
how you infected me, yes
now inhaling your ash to my lungs in pipe and in sky
drowning in layers of pollution in the sea of home
drowning in the sea of my mouth
drowning in a mouth like a seagull beak
plucking bread crumbs and scabs
almost drown when i was 10
in that great south bay, sleepy pollution
now, i turn 20 and i stand drowning in sea of the seedlings you planted
how could i be so moldable?
how home would infect then?
it would seep chest and toes and space above my brow
14 deep and 7 to disintegrate
home imprinted on skin now
today,today i will feed the beast, somehow
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC