"pallets" poems
People, you are pots of paint for my canvass.
With all your quirks and foibles,
And wonderful ways.
The world indeed is crowded
With many pots of paint:
Glorious views.
My brushes are all aquiver,
Inspired by everything.
From India to Iceland,
Russia to sunny Spain.
You folk, I love to paint you,
Though never your actual words.
The universe, a marvel,
Flying through the heavens.
Swirling spiral galaxies,
Pallets for my verse.
Paul Butters
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 6:05 AM UTC
wednesday ..
is faded black jeans/old white tank (too big) (hole from belt buckle centre front)
glass of water stuck into the rings left by past week's mugs of beer
sitting by the ashtray. and you are better than a nip of rye in the truck cab heading to work.
the dust in my lungs (wide open saskatchewan fields)
is not as important as watching the clouds stain purple with the sunrise
patting two gorgeous farm dogs who run over from behind a silo turned to bronze in the light
(there is an angel laying naked in the wheat grain)
to nip playfully at my calves while i unchain the derrick,
somewhere in my mind's recess it feels like i am loosing atlas from his *******
tho i do not register the thought until later upon waking from a nap.
saturday // 1:15:44 pm
i am in only briefs now working on a song/i clocked 4
hrs greasing truck 1117 this morning and
hauling pallets.
daylene from dispatch brought in donuts.
i'll spend the afternoon listening to kanye and talking to women online.
—there are no girls in estevan. i have (kind of) looked.
sometimes i believe this to be pathetic but then i think further ahead
and it's not so bad.
you do really meet some nice girls. phone is replete with their numbers &
they keep me company on long rides to and from leases,
asking about work. hoping that i am well.
(once back home by christmas account will be deleted and i can
take them out at my leisure. you'll understand i hope that i am not
a desperate man. but one has to work with that which he has.
would you rather i go lonely? make my home in the mud to croon hank williams to crows?)
(temporality.)
15/10/2012
there are now three beer cans on the carpet & one on the washing machine by the
bathroom door which i will drink in the shower.
it was sort of a long day.
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 3:09 PM UTC
The doorknob to the closet
full of my skeletons is made of
funny-bone
But there are days
when honesty tugs a little too roughly and
I realize this isn't all that funny now
Is it?
As a writer
You learn presentation is key
In the bend of language
I create this man
I want you to believe me to be
And so I tell you these stories
like they are jokes
Like they are no big deal
Like the first time I got drunk
was with my friend's mom
who was a known child molester
She tried to order us ****
But couldn't work the cable
Or my friends and I used to travel our city
via the water drainage system
Near the mall
We got lost once
and while standing
in ankle high water
we saw at least 20 homeless people
sleeping on pallets
We called that place *** City
We had to get directions back out
There's a possibilty I have been an accessory to ******
Around the time in my life when I learned
How not to dwell
My body was a wishbone
My father meant to break
But every beating
left me the better half
I find so much of it funny
My brother's most recent suicide attempt
My mother's
My father's Alzheimer's
He once chased after our mailman
naked
Asking him about some letter
from some woman
I have never met before
I find laughter
and beauty
in the bend of language
When this chest becomes a broken radiator
and my heart grows cold
The metaphor mutates Campfire
Come here
I am lonely
and I have a story to tell you
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 5:24 AM UTC
Green peppers
Red peppers
Onions
and shallots
Get ready for some intense flavor to hit your pallets
A splash of vinegar
Salt
Chives
And garlic
Your tongue will dance for joy and actually seem to frolic
Epis
Sos Pwa
Rice
And baked chicken
The taste buds in your mouth wont know what hit them
Four hours later and I've enriched in my culture
I'm almost like a new woman
Because today I learned to cook food from my parents native nation
The time and effort was so very worth it
And now I feel a little bit more Haitian
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.
Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.
Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
"Who'll beyond the hills away?"
Towns and countries woo together,
Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
Lived to feast his heart with all.
Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
2k
Funny how a building with four walls made of brick becomes a home.
Becomes almost like a member of your family
The memories seep deep into the paint
Hopes and dreams fill the air in every room
Every tear shed, every laugh shared, every scream in anger, every lonely evening, all bundled up and all that will remain
Now after almost 8 years my home is being taken away
After fighting for a hopeless marriage, surviving a ugly divorce, and the worry for this single mom, its all being snatched away.
I tried my best but no help was offered from this cold world, of banks and money and power.
Where I am only a number, not a person
They don't seem my struggles, they don't seem that I have spent my life trying to help my fellow man, regardless of the pain it may cause
All that is left are boxes of card board line the walls
Every photo removed
Every memory packed away
Every mark on the door showing how my little girl has grown
The driveway she rode a bike in for the first time.
The room I rocked her to sleep in
So sad to leave this old friend behind
So hopeless and frail are the now empty walls
So eerily quiet are the rooms once filled with love.
Once filled with lullabies and songs, laughter and fun.
Dancing in the kitchen
Making pallets and forts on the floor.
All gone.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 6:59 PM UTC
Go on, my Son, go out and box,
don't wave this chance good-bye,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.
The Judges have it Fifty/Fifty, an equinox,
apply yourself. . . apply,
Go on my Son, go out and box.
Keep it crafty, like the fox,
acid to his alkali,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.
Jab, Jab, Hook! Unpick the locks,
it's time to modify,
Go on my Son, go out and box.
Unloading pallets of concrete blocks
until the day you die ?
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.
Win this Round, escape the docks,
would I tell you a lie ?
Go on my Son, go out and box,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 3:45 PM UTC
She kicked me out of bed first thing in the morning
I didn’t even have time to make us breakfast
Not that she was hungry
She seemed satiated enough
So I left
and later met a friend for lunch
He was kicked out of bed first thing in the morning
He didn’t even have time to make his new lover breakfast
Not that he would have eaten
He seemed satiated enough
So my friend left
And he met me for lunch
Our attempts at fuckery find us
Not too far from one another
It is the distance of a coffee table in a diner
After we make our way to the wayside again
We both have water
And it washes our pallets clean
Of the liquor
And the cigarettes
And her mouth
And his mouth
Still lingering a little bit bitter
So we sip some more
These are sheets we leave behind so stained
That you hope the passion will stay
Until there are so many it doesn’t matter anymore
These one night stands will never feel any less *****
The spots of sweat and memory
That still won’t wash out
So many
They look like constellations
As the sheets hang to dry
I imagine they trace out your body
Not just your body
Any body
So generic now
It makes The Shroud of Turin
Look the aftermath of Babylon’s midnight bustle
These are the ways that love leaves you
Hanging you wet to dry
Stained and *****
And equally alone again
Forgive me for the way my mind wanders
I am still with you
I just didn’t want to *** yet
These are the ways my body leaves me
And then you
The morning after I accidentally told you I love you
Even though we just met
I have found and lost love
Enough times to secure my spot in hell by now
I mean
My fear of death his hell enough
To love you as much as I can
Forgive my neuroticism
As I leave again
Finding myself where my fuckery leaves me
At lunch
With a friend
Who is equally awkward
As we make way to the wayside again
Dec 5, 2011
Dec 5, 2011 at 3:57 AM UTC
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.
fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.
the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.
judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.
wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.
homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
The sun its farewell to the skies
As it cranks out this unexplainable color
That Painters can’t make on their color pallets
The Wind creates this unexplainable noise
The wind gives you reasons to keep dreaming towards the sky
It is something that city slickers can't hear in the rowdy subways
At this time the sun bids me farewell
But don't worry, It will return
When it pokes its head out
On the east
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 10:33 PM UTC
lie down embroidered in the cool darkness
startling signatures dotting infinite oblivion
capsizing a raging fiery glow transition
singing of great chorus daunting premonition
anticipate the halt of breath prior
the splinter in time where the trees
gander the melodious swell intimate
the slumber left behind to the well of day
that fraction of a moment
my bedroom window encompassed
upon softest pastel pallets, kissing the breeze
soothing the scars and ceaseless throb
amazed, drinking in the spilling of sunlight
clouds streaking the stains eradicating, pulsing over
nature chirping and sighing with that of sage
lucid bliss settling gently on defenses in my chest
and as the day swirls and falls, pulses and cringes
coming home, bustling with stings pinching
thoughts gone quite tired and violent
the sun descends, and night begins
shadows cast, swimming in direction
like a flood of acoustic strumming
and wink of yawning black cat
the world softens and slows
lives retreat and flowers sway in the breeze
aching hearts and bitter limbs rest in sheets
linen of softest cloth, woven by threads
a comfortable place to rest my head
and the day descends and night takes full
crickets crying and mystery lurking
fingers soothing the spasms in my brain
with every turn of page, the stroke of brush
resting with the sliver lurking
everywhere I go, ghosting in echoes
reaching out with eyes quite closed
mind swirling with undefined competence
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 11:21 PM UTC
now a days i take my coffee black like my father did
sometimes i add sugar,
small traces of me still pretending we are not one in the same
now a days i paint my nails black like my mother taught me
she urged me not to be afraid of the brush
"be brave in the way life calls for"
now a days i count every line on my palm like my aunt would do
told me every one was a little sin,
and that when i arrived at the gates of heaven
i would raise my hands to god and he would merely watch
now a days i wear my hair back like i did when i was a kid
i am still setting fire to ant piles
and painting my knees brown and blue with pallets from the earth
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 11:47 PM UTC
Summer gets darker,
Sun begins to fade,
Our lives get more wise, through the dances of autumns haze.
Leaves fall off and a charmed aroma of sweet cider symphonies come down the trees unto hearts that bleed.
Enjoy the rich colors autumn brings, deep burgundy red, grape purple, golden bronze and chocolate sweetness floats into the air of a summoned season that we call Fall.
Delicious treats on our tongue touched pallets,
soft, warm, chewy cinnamon buns, red stains covering our lips from that glass bitten candy apple we bought at the fair. Smells of apple cider and maple syrup and our lovers kiss that is smooth like a pumpkin spice dream when my chap stick smothers your face in such delightful ways.
Sep 15, 2020
Sep 15, 2020 at 10:16 PM UTC
Just, thought I, to escape a while,
Mundane light in the desk at home
On these splintered, black-tar roads
Marching, festooned in leaf and in rock
Snapping and scattering from underfoot.
My heavy breaths are this odd meter
In-out, in-out on this pavement slap
The knees are strained, down, the stream
Of rheumy little beads—lines! (I sense
Conception of a rare cadence
In which earth finds its synchrony).
‘Round the walls of rustic homes and will
To this walking gallery of the ‘ville
Ancient oaks, they lift their head and grin
To a sky beyond the storm, what with plumes
Unearthly fronds, dark with salmon painted on
Softened, its oil, burnt carnal black
That loose-end feeling holding it back.
Furrowed brow, I run with now
Sweet winds and pirouette
The dancers go amidst the leaves
Hold Hell high ‘bove white hands
Turned in deference and o,’ Arbor!
Your threshold live and saturnine
Entire eternities unfold now, silk scarf on
Goddess Eve, her halo proud
Gold embraced by Pink and now
She strides in by the choral geese
Flown to sing her godhead to sleep
Her rest had blest pain to leave me now
At those gates loud, effervescent
Shimmering, shimmering
In calm disbelief
And on
And on.
Back at the source, that in-between
Bare **** of the Fasick bridge
Magmatic pallets, on faces two
One shared tear drop, a cosmic breadth.
I saw from there the garden of stone
Lonely tombs in blamy play
Fruits sprung in those past lives.
I shared their rest for moment still
And back it goes, the nameless past
Where they exists as dreams, beside me.
Two sides, met then so diverged
I saw their peace where night emerged
Where pink embraced the dark
Went to rest on low horizons.
The world closed its lips and lids
Its eyes and loving heart
Bathed, it all, in low florescence
And lullaby of cicadas.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 11:07 PM UTC
He ratchets a smile
she sins in her heart
and he pallets a romance
she fearfully starts
He catches her breath
in a bottle of time
and melds her aroma
to shards of his mind
She sketches a portrait
betrayed by the dawn
and illuminates fantasies
kept all along
He pallets a romance
she smothers it slow
and he shatters the bottle
that she overflows
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 1:09 AM UTC
Some will make their home
Wherever they can
Get to with their feet.
Cardboard box houses
And pallets they find
By trash bins on the street.
The boxes work well
Unless it snows or rains
And then when they melt
It’s out to find a home again.
Go on home
Where the love is
Home to family
Go on home
Where you’re welcome
There is no home for me.
Cookie used to be a chef
He lives under that low bridge
He cooks in used coffee cans
That just how his life is.
Makes dinner when he has it
For us who have so little.
You’ll find him most days
Cooking delicious food
Halfway to the middle.
Go on home
Where your bed is
Home to wife and your kids
Go on home
And be grateful
And not living on the skids.
Some people gripe
When the waiter is slow
And some were once waiters
Themselves long ago.
Some people are full
After they have dined
Others only manage to eat
Whatever castoffs they find.
Go on home
Because you have one
Because you have a job.
Go home where no one
Call you a lazy slob.
Go home and thank God
You have a place to sleep.
Go home and be grateful
Go home and God keep.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 1:58 PM UTC
Unrealistic-
Expectations
Sends me ballistic,
I can't function!
Animalistic-
The beast in me won't stay in its grave!
A mental misfit-
Tell me am I too much to save?
These pastel colours are painted on my life pallet:
Love and Laughter,
Rage and Regret
The memories I'm after
The memories I want to forget
The red and blues are abused
These aren't the colours I should see!
How could I tell you?
You never come through-
It is killing me
I'm at the point where it hurts so much I hurt myself
Don't you understand the meaning of 'help'?
Feb 9, 2019
Feb 9, 2019 at 9:11 AM UTC
Inspired by my friend's assortment of shapes and colors
Original style & traditional technique
Creates art like nonother
My art brother, taking the colors and shredding the canvas
distorted faces from other planets
From traditional to digital
Those techniques are critical
Sketching, drawing on paper
Emotions turned physical
Contrast with contours of color that’s Subliminal
I can take a brush and ****** a million strokes
only to a evoke that life is a chameleon coat
Plenty colors mix with a heavy dose and an antidote
Spectrums tell the story of pallets scattered across the globe
Intersections of civilian lives create a chain effect like some dominos
Retrospective minds seek ideas that are divine yet quite bountiful
A beast confined in walls is but a human animal
unleash and you will find that everything is tangible
Instinctual being, seeing is the true believing
literal beams shine, to find a truer meaning
unpredictability, dictates our true abilities
I am but an entity
who seeks to be a piece of energy
not blinded by identity
I forge these recipes, so all your eyes can eat
for these words are too delicious
so don't hit backspace our alt delete
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 12:19 AM UTC
A trailer built by vikings
it can never be
sold
The porch is just
some broken
old
wooden pallets
The walls are green with
mold
Spiders hide under
the cushions
And it's either
too hot or too
cold
But if you are there to
hold
me
I wouldn't wanna be
anywhere else
in the world.
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
Love made to order
like a luxury bottle
of fine wine that
appreciates with time
We open ourselves
and let the relationship
breathe as it matures
Never gulped, yet sipped
slowly and enjoyed as
a guilty pleasure
The finest crystal used
akin to dressing up
in ballroom attire for
the proper occasion
A myriad of flavors
and bouquets dance
on our pallets like
a waltz composed
by Tchaikovsky
What follows is left
to the imagination,
but consider a good
bottle much like a
good relationship
always leaves you
yearning for more.
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 3:35 AM UTC
The 352 Blues
this city treats the poor
with swift unkindness,
but if you peel your eyes,
you don't necessarily have to always
sing the ole 352 Bleecker Blues
the eyetalian storekeeper,
gives us morning java,
when we sing for him on the guitar,
The Star-Spangled Banner,
refills, if we add America the Beautiful
they say that heat rises,
but that don't seem true
in our third floor walk up
on rue 352 Bleecker Street,
the cold companion enters
thru the busted stain glass window
no matter, no cares,
we light the fireplace,
with wood and anything that'll burn,
we scavenged from the street,
pallets and newspapers,
rent bills overdue,
yesterday's 352 truths
at two AM, the cops, in their cars
cooping, fast asleep, only just us,
the johns, the ****** and troubadours,
walking the streets looking for
free stuff to burn
pass the hat for tips
next to the arch,
enough for daily bread
but we get our ***** and ****
for free, just for singing the 352 blues
even when down and out
on the village streets,
bleak on Bleecker street,
you gotta sing the 352 blues,
especially when you're
riding high and living cool,
down on easy Bleecker Street
in 1968
~~~~~~~
Before you ask me if this true,
save your breath,
the answer is
Which part?
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 11:50 AM UTC
There will be a journey, a gathering of mixed herbs
Great swathes, buttressing mountains grazed with
Grassy wigs. Metal structures lining up calculating
The swing to left, to right, catching the intermittent gasps
The rhythm snakes me away, its rattling chorus marching
Ahead, spying on the quality of this paragraph sitting side by side
A vacancy on the page still wearing its white robe, alone for now
I searched out a chance at freedom on a fast track, borrowing scenes
From oiled pallets, hills & dells daubed grandiosely. They deliberately
Bait. Once bitten twice shy. I heard it bandied around.....but...
I am not shy of the wild dogs, howling is a lullaby. I have the ticket
To be smitten with bitten chances; once, twice...maybe thrice
.....does it for me.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 1:34 PM UTC
Swept up to the path of moon chilled air
Above the mountains of clouds
To see what only has been dreamed
To seek what has been sought
In pallets mixed only
With earth drawn media
The dream revealed
The secret yet contained
Lying in wait
For the seeker's return
Each shade, each tone, each tint
Revealed before
Was but a prelude
To this last proof of the divine
To call it midnight is but a bewildered seekers word
To evoke comparison
The moon was there its glory
Reflected in boundless mosaics
Of shimmering movement
Not the singular heavenly glow of other midnights
When the sun awakens
The new midnight
Reveals a peculiar dimension
Of its magnificence.
A deep and pure memory
Of a life now forgotten
Of a dream ever there
Jan 6, 2011
Jan 6, 2011 at 2:48 PM UTC
Beneath the shallow
Winter Moon
i watch lowly
from distant hill
pallets colors of
muted light
paints the
landscape
in shades
of
grays
lifeless trees
guard
lifeless hills
reaching up
like
bony limbs
fingers
forearms
stretching forth
to pull the moon
from high aloft
bitter cold
gropes winter's
night
still as death
beneath a grave
snow and ice
shackles earth
in cold
shadows pale
from orbs
dim light
creeping slowly
overhead
disc it arches
through
blackened sky
shadows shrink
elongating
again
sphere retreats
or' yonder ridge
once more
moon
finds a place
to rest
'til darkness
awakes
It once again
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 9:06 AM UTC