Season of sun and sand and sea,
Holiday time for you and me.
Daylight right ‘til ten o’clock,
Don’t forget to wear sun-block.

Sitting idly reading Keats,
Watching kids with buckets and spades;
Sparrows with their frantic tweets,
Flying high above the glades.

Oh it’s great to be so free,
No more snow or ice for me.
Even mugginess is okay,
So long as it’s warm throughout the day.

Swimming in that so cool pool,
Sure beats sweating back in school.
Summer is my favourite month,
Whoops my rhyme-scheme just went Whoomph!

Nothing rhymes with month you know,
But let’s forget about that snow.
Let’s laze instead on lawn or beach,
And keep a beer within our reach.

Paul Butters

This muggy, sultry sun is no fun:
Longest sustained heatwave for over forty years.
Suffocating Sahara with Death Valley cracks
In the dry arid soil.

My electric fan shattered with a power surge
Into fragmented plastic shards.
I so miss it now.
It’s oppressively tropical,
With volcanic heat
And Pressure bearing down on us.
The clammy mugginess of a sauna.
Not the clean dry air you find abroad,
Yet still that remorseless torrid scorching,
Roasting and toasting.
Just too much.

Hot air clothed in humid moisture,
Stuffy and sweaty,
Steaming to a haze
And later
Thunder storms.

I long for a cool brew
To freeze my throat
And quench my raging thirst:
Ice cool, ice cool, ice cool.
I’m sure not talking
Of tea.

Paul Butters

© PB 6\8\2018.

how is it Southerners can stand the heat
it hasn't been this hot all season long
this mugginess is robbing me of sleep
dog days are early for summer's swan song
my shirt is wet in the middle of night
knew enough to get up, drink some water
my brow is sweating even as I write
sit by the fan as I think I oughter
the fan is on "breeze" lulling me to sleep
seems to work as my body is cooling
back to bed now, resort to counting sheep
closing my eyes, enough with this fooling

the TV's volume is down to a drone
my body's easing into a dream zone

Sun-blushed mugginess mothers us,
With the promise of a storm.
Swarms of bumble bees do buzz
Amongst Cotoneasters bathed in warm.

It’s proper summer,
That’s for sure.
No more ice and snow
For us to endure.

The Longest Day will soon be gone,
But here, right now, the sun has won.
Time to fiesta, how I love it.
More of this I truly covet.

Paul Butters

the scent of towels impregnated
with chlorine, mixes with petrichor
from the brief but violent storm

the mugginess still sits heavy in
the evening air as fruit bats
fly overhead, not one or two,
but tens and twenties, setting off
a mad barking frenzy among
the neighborhood dogs

twilight beckons to the darker night
and the smell of wet wood and sausages
cooking over takes the night
some one plays the guitar and the
notes drift unevenly on the breeze

houses become shadows, as the moon rises
the frogs begin to chorus and cats gossip
on the next door neighbor's garage
specteral shapes in silhouette
the sweet smell of jasmine
and honeysuckle wafts by

as we sit in the dark
awaiting the temperatures drop
anytime  now.....anytime

distant thunder calling
mugginess in the air
late afternoon showers
welcomed
                   by
                        the thirsty flowers

If it's raining for you
it's raining all the time for you
It's a storm and you're alone.

If it's summer for you
It's too hot
and the mugginess makes your sweat useless

If it's too much for you
you're knees are buckling
and you're climbing
the steepest hill is your route
It's gonna get better.

If the rain's gone
your shirt been dried by the sun
your friends are outdoors
and it's time to make fun

If it's late spring for you,
you're comfortable,
a moist air keeps you the same

If you've just let down your burden
You've no lead in your shoes
and the road is a gentle downward *****
It's gonna get worse.

The unimpeachable glasses are fogging,
as they tentatively ignore the premonition,
while ignoring the suppressive partition,
that defends themselves from submission.

The eyes detect,
with unreasonable rest,
the hazy, shadowy terrain,
that prevents them from pain.

If the mugginess stays,
and the heart embellishes the fade,
then the glasses maintain,
their authoritarian reign.

Came on one day, the darkened clouds,
That hung in sky, a gloomy companion,
With rain, so summer, dropped steadily,
The sun did not come readily out today.

Damp sidewalks, pavements, black as coal,
With whistling wind that danced in trees,
A cool, invigorating massage of  face and skin,
A spiritual rebirth so surely on its wandering way.

Humidifying to our own bodies and souls,
The mugginess comes and moments of listless day,
So counting moments as they flashed before us,
Another, blustery fall day we shared today.

So, endless puddles of deepen water wells,
Splash out before us when we came to play,
But walking faster, the bus that flies by us,
Is lightened as the sun peeks out to shine the way.

All shrubbery around is shaken by the wind
As smoking grey clouds threaten rain.
But I sit snugly in my lounge
Idly contemplating a chicken-breast tea.

The long heatwave is over
For now.
Atlantic air has swept the mugginess
Aside.
Thermometers have settled down
While cooler moisture sooths our very souls.

This lounge of mine presents a landscape too:
Of settee, armchairs and table
Along with dining chairs and TV:
Mountains over carpet savannas.

But the kitchen calls me from next door
So no matter how lazy I feel
I really have to eat now.
This interlude must end
So very soon.

Paul Butters

© PB 29/7/2018.

Came on one day, the darkened clouds,
That hung in sky, a gloomy companion,
With rain, so summer, dropped steadily,
The sun did not come readily out today.

Damp sidewalks, pavements, black as coal,
With whistling wind that danced in trees,
A cool, invigorating massage of  face and skin,
A spiritual rebirth so surely on its wandering way.

Humidifying to our own bodies and souls,
The mugginess and moments of listless day,
So counting moments as they flashed before us,
Another, blustery fall day we shared today.

So, endless puddles of deepen water wells,
Splash out before us when we came to play,
But walking faster, the bus that flies by us
Is lightened as the sun peeks out to shine the way.

Heat from the street beneath my feet keeps hitting me.
The sun above relentlessly shows no mercy,
Baking everything with its fiery stare.
Sultry mugginess smothers us in a sauna of sweat
As even the breeze burns my reddening face.

Global warming turns us into another Venus
As record-high temperatures
Scorch us into submission.
Even some Sun Lovers are hiding now,
While others insist it’s just Summer.
In heat like this there’s only one solution…

Time for a beer.

Paul Butters

© PB 17\7\2022.