A family of sheep live in harmony, all from different areas
Different ages and different ideas. They all came together
United in a friendship, strong enough to be called a family
But there are wolves out there…. Terrible creatures that
Want nothing more to attack the sheep. They once might
Of been sheep, but something dark and twisted shaped them
Into the creatures they are now. They stalk, coming closer to
The family, moving in to destroy the harmony they live in
But as they come close they feel a presence pushing at them
Something protecting the sheep, something dark as them, sending
Shivers down the wolves spines, something terrible enough
To scare the mighty wolves

A mighty bear, massive in size, vast bigger than the wolves
The bear has strong curved claws ready to attack any that
Approach. Its speed is also a deadly trait the bear possesses
Able to out run any evil coming at him. The bear also has a
A super amazing sense of smell, able to smell the stench from
Miles away.
The bear perks up, catching the smell of a creature that doesn’t
Belong…

The other creature is the sheepdog. Though not as big as the
Bear the sheepdog has a presence that scares the wolves.
The sheepdog has fangs as long as the wolves and attacks
Just as ferocious as the wolves. While the bear knows when
Violence can be avoided by scaring the wolves away, the
Sheepdog does not know this, he jumps at the violence
Instead, taking the impulse to attack and destroy, marking
Him close to the wolves.

The bear circles to the sheepdog and together they move to
The wolves, ready to protect the family behind them
The wolves leave, scattering to avoid them, facing away
From the ever presence

The sheep are swimming in the Nile; they must be living in denial!
Denial is our best friend, the constitution we must amend!

Guns are our mortal enemies; their only use is to commit felonies
To stop these tragedies, we must impose harsher penalties!

There is no wolf, we will not die; there’s no need to put your life on the line
Sheepdogs are for the paranoid, those who live in a void

Remove the sheepdog and the enemy goes away, to happiness this is the true way
Ban the wolf with a no trespassing sign, surely we’ll be fine

Respect and common courtesy, the wolf will live in harmony
Close our eyes and he goes away, all we have to do is pray

Our herd used to be bigger; we don’t ask questions as long as our denial can deliver
Until our children are in the fire, then the sheepdog we require

But the sheepdog is out of practice, we fired him for “malpractice.”
Ruined by us, he looks no better than us – but he’s not like us

The sheepdog is weak; his sheep made him an antique
But his mind is strong and he’s eager to **** the evil and wrong

Wolves are predators, feeding on the weak; it’s denial they seek
The sheep will never fight, but pray the sheepdog is able to take up their plight

i like to watch the sheepdog rounding up the sheep
first a little run then a gentle creep
rounding up the herd as gentle as can be
drives them to a pen a clever dog his he

listens to his master to his whistle blow
so he understands which way he has to go
always very faithful by his masters side
just to watch the sheepdog fills my heart with pride.

I know my motives
and they're far from pure -
The lengths I will go to
for a pat on the head.

And then there's you -
you, with your pure indifference
and your thousand words for soil

Reminding me
that real art
is its own reward
And that I have created none.

But oh!
I am grateful for the lesson,
for the knowledge of the destination
and the chance
to be on my way.

one - i don't understand why saying "it's the 21st century" is somehow seen as a compensation for 20 centuries of our inhumanity, or a case of: only improvements reside in us - seems just as false to say - men can overcome angels, as stated by the first Christians... yeah, we can do miracles with technology and ultra-secular communication dynamics - discarding the existence of such beings resulted in hen parties with plastic wings and halos... what a great method to discard such being, and subsequently appropriate their features, if ever needed, but altogether unnecessary... two - that disrespecting heterosexuality aligned with the power of science has made it altogether a pointless endeavour in re-enacting the monogamous nature of swans: if we can breed the many perversions, ahem, deviations, we surely require en equal share of respect, before science undermines any deviations into an economic format of breeding pure heterosexual contingencies... three: who the hell said i was throwing anyone off a roof? i was just curious about the slack pressurising the alias big brother / grey matter dictator into teaching us language, then to later make us into a Koranic cyclops or having to sway one side, but not the other, teaching us vocabulary in school, but robbing us of a fluidity of language beyond school, in society... any rational man would say: just teach me the knuckle, the stone and the stick to express my manners... because, to be frank, i'm not into faking being civilised, just teach me to be a barbarian from the start, don't dangle the magic carrot in front of my eyes when it's a fake... teach me the barbarism you want to suppress later on in life: i'm not into being Dolly 2.3419, and an attache to a sheepdog for herding purposes to take it up the **** and shut up: because a member of Parliament did it to me aged 14; for example.

subjectivity is doubled attacked, it's not the merely rationalist
approach of an objective side of things,
i could understand tiresome efforts
Chinese politics while walking
the tourist plot on the great wall -
in a society that's seismically acknowledging
social or whatever coherence,
i find it a bit of limbo of paraphrasing
trans - or trans-physics, or the active
way to usurp metaphysics, by deviating
from thought as an activity, and more
how words are sense datum co-ordinates
that are like dictators: because it just, feels,
funny, and, offensive. ***** vocabulary,
that's what i call it... after a while you concentrate
on what ****** you off, first the educational
autocracy teaches you a vocabulary,
then come the St. Thomas' terrorists with:
you need to revise your vocabulary...
like **** that'll happen, you don't own
language, i don't own language, you're
little fascist agenda to censor such awoke
the boy that was supposed to wake Barbarossa
from his slumber with the cry: crows! crows!
a cloud of crows! funny how the eagle is a
failed emblem for empires, and the crow isn't...
mind you, the English succeeded with
an empire half-and-half: a lion and a unicorn...
i'd guess as much with a monkey and
a centaur, or at least a Cerberus - something
mythical - well, sure, the Poles are attacked
in Britain... but ever hear about the Scot
being attacked in an English village?
a Scot was attacked just the other day,
because kilts were deemed offensive...
so trans-gender is good, meta-gender is:
had a wee t'ink 'bout it...
   robots start with the pronoun use: one...
royalty start with the pronoun use: we...
                 and in between we have paranoid
they and we... and insecure you and i -
or as e. e. cummings would have it:
    *i say no world
                 can hold a you
   shall see the not
             because
  and why but
                          (who        -
true, but as much of not is entanglement
              with knots - or ought to tries -
  to not or to knot and be -
                              Shakespeare also said:
  funny how i was born neo-liberal,
millennial tattooed - and fake-left...
   i hear the right is a tsunami of focus these days,
all the generation Z are buying into
obstructing gay-marriage, and are adamant
   on not abusing pronouns - hence the current
revival in grammar school education in England -
they don't drink, i.e.: taking psychopathic gambles,
they're prone to social-media overdoses
rather than succumbing to excess ecstasy and palpitation:
i had 190 "friends"... let's just call them vantage points...
   sheered that social media sheep: only 13 left...
but at least objectivity outright says:
       subjectivity is subhuman, science taught us
that subjectivity is the fire between two flint stones,
all in all necessary - but objectivity said:
             two flints! two flints! no fire!
what attacks subjectivity is not objectivity,
it's satire... to humanise everything: good or bad,
with a standard of humour... well... telling a sad
joke to later tell the same sad joke by satirising it...
punch in a face; because there are only so number of
things that are funny in life... the English language
doesn't seem to understand that even the odd chance
of black humour, will not lift the spirits of those,
who, quiet frankly, don't want to be humoured...
the only humour left is not to provision the public
with barbaric satire, sometimes empathy will do,
because it's emphatic humour,
   it's Godot's roundabout humour: the shared experience.
laughing for the sake of laughing is
             a cry from apathy's lost interest in
being pardonably dasein - laughing at all the truthful
autobiographic desecrate is apathy's last
chance to impress: but how foul it all sounds by then...
   the western version of buddhism suddenly feels like
  a taste of pears in november: not sour, not bitter...
just maggoty foul - yucky goo
                  of a plum-shaded rouse of the skin
tinged hue after contact with knuckle and knee.
  but they attacked a ******* Scot in an English village,
because of a kilt...
                                   he knows the strand of ganging up
in hyena numbers and then the celebratory drink
of compensating conscience - they'll sooner accept
     a trans-gender dunno'h than a hot-blooded
heap of tartan - ever ask the homosexuals what
they think of St. Thomas' gospel?
              i think: too much, too early, too innocently.
and if they tell you: speak differently!
they will, i'm ****** sure they will want to
control your grammar without any specialisation -
you'll wonder: summer in Syria?
                     because as racism goes,
they attack the difference, and the difference is only
skin deep, like they did with the Afros of Kentucky,
the Kentucky Afros will spring right back,
    because the abuse was only skin deep,
therefore their soul was enlarged, and they'll
play the blues, and the jazz, and rap, and break-dance...
but if the abuse goes to the depth of soul...
in that it's soul-deep...
                                and because it's white v. white...
it will ferment, and nothing positive will come from it...
no jazz, no blues... nothing of cultural importance...
   it will be haggled in the political market
to the point where both sides will find it utterly
unbearable: and then start to sheer their skins...
        you won't get anything from this soul-deep
attack... if the holocaust is what it felt like,
            then this is a minor post-holocaust episode,
a reminder...
                          and by god, i thank god
for the fact that the Picts are involved -
                                                            whe­re to now?
O Imperium Gladstone paraphrase?
                            it will be hard to beat the unicorn -
all empires donning the eagle duly fail -
centaur and a frog? maybe next time.

“Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,
The Beneficent, the Merciful.
Owner of the Day of Judgement,
Thee (alone) we worship;
Thee (alone) we ask for help.
Show us the straight path,
The path of those whom Thou hast favoured.
Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger
Nor of those who go astray.”

This we said to you, oh Great One, in the Quran
So many years ago.
But Lord your flocks are fleeing from your fields.
We need your Sheepdog to round them up in their confusion.

They do not see you are a God of many names,
“God” being one of them.
Over the ages you have been Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Mother Earth, Jehovah, God, Allah
And many others.
But always you were The One True One,
Beneficent and Loving.

All men (and women) are equal in your eyes.
All Life to be cherished and preserved.
Thou shalt not ****
Is what you said.

So Allah now’s the time
To correct your children:
Breathe into them
The essence of your thoughts.

Enter their minds as The Holy Ghost,
So many Scrooges there:
Enlighten them
To know what is really Good
And rediscover what it is
To Love.
Amen.

Paul Butters

you don't like girls who sass back

you want a girl who'll follow you around like a sheepdog

cleaning up your scraps.

you don't like girls who talk a lot

or too loudly

you'd prefer meek with a dash of kitten sweater

and i don't have anything against kitten sweaters

they're ******* awesome

but i've got a huge problem

with meek

so you and me...

it's not gonna happen

there was a little sheep dog he was black and white
i watched him round the sheep up it was such delight
following close behind them so they wouldnt stray
for the little sheepdog this was his working day
he was very clever and knew just what to do
by the farmers whistle every time he blew
a charming little fellow as busy as can be
working with the sheep such a lovely site to see

She readies the tomatoes & radishes
fresh lettuce leaves & green onion
then finishes with salad cream as a garnish
& puts the evening’s fish pie in the oven

The salad sings sweetly to her
of the bygone days of childhood summers
fast cars on winding country lanes,
the way her grandfather would say

something to his sheepdog
& watch it rush away again
in the sunlight’s  warm
grasp,  before the rain

wandering fields & farms
or out by Thor’s cave
always with a pair of binoculars
for counting birds & bats

& how he’d sleep in his armchair
in a red brick stack of a house
& how the dazed garden air
always smelt of tea roses

many years have gone past
& she keeps all the old photographs
under lock & key in Europe
& old birthday cards in their envelopes

Every Christmas the phone rings
out above a coal-filled fireplace
& the call goes to the answer machine
all that love gone to waste

* Thor's Cave is a cave in Manifold Valley in the county of Staffordshire in the UK

i like to watch the sheepdog rounding up the sheep
as he crouches down.  around them he will creep
keeps them all together keeps them in a pack
fully in control so they cant run back

using all his skill he guides them to a pen
then back into the field to do it all again
i just love to watch him it gives me such a thrill
a very clever dog born with so much skill

I hear your voice echo on the walls of the Tiffany box—

hello hello
hello

hello

—with that southern-belle cadence
you spoke with always, like when you
told us we never had to knock, just
come in through the garage

on my graduation day I opened it for the first time
little silver teardrop on a little silver chain
delicate, like all of you, except your fingers
delicate, like the line you’re walking now

your robin’s-egg antique pickup gathering dust as I am miles away
sheepdog going deaf, legs shaky when she stands

I only allotted for that one loss this year.

on new year’s morning when we all
stomached the black eyed peas for tennessee good will
hung over and sweet-heavy with cinnamon rolls
and decadent, permanent, big hardy love
I spent my wish on the usual

and hey, maybe a couple more years for the dog.

hello hello

hello

hello

hello?


your lilting voice echoes every time I put on that necklace
and feel you, savor you around my neck for every
wine-drunk dinner and every nantucket porch photograph—


god if I would have known to wish on that

Memories of my  beautiful Summer
walks down Blendennis lane with
my Mother Brug, Aunts  Kate and Maggie
and my beloved  sheepdog  Shep.
The smell of the new mown hay
cornfields reaching maturity,
the whiff of wildflowers and heather everywhere,
breathtaking on a late summers evening.

Never to be experienced, anywhere in the World
Those were the bygone days, past the bog of bulrushes,
the cattle chewing their cuds in the fields beyond.
I wish my Shep could race and meet me  now
like he did on my  way home  from school
when I appeared at the white  spot in the  Lane.

I am now the old dog under tree

I will sit back and watch as the the wolves devour the sheep

Wolves will be wolves

And sheep will be sheep

Just don’t come under my tree

And all will be fine

With me

LOST IN FRANCE

In the distance
a dog throws its voice

so it seems
the trees are barking.

Sun and shadow
playing tag

between rows and rows
of trees.

France is made of
landscape and light.

I feel as if I am
walking in a painting

that is wet yet.

I nothing but
a mobile little smudge.

I drink in the light
as if my soul thirsted for it.

Now a yellow dog
leaves its post

to chase me half way
down its road.

Now a Yorkie
guards the crossroads.

Here a sheepdog
silently trails me

until it has successfully
seen me off its turf.

I smile sheepishly.

I, lost and found
all at the one time.

Finally the road turns and
the village runs out to meet me.

I, now only lost
in wonder.

I am the creature that creeps in the night.

I am beastly.

I am a foul and vile creature.
Cast into the darkness
Out of hate by those who catch a glimpse of me.

Dark and jaded from being beaten I refuse to be seen.

You are the light that shines through the darkness.

You are beautiful.

You are a kind and loving person.
A beacon of hope to those with none.
Cherished by all those around you.

Selflessly you hold others up at their worst.

I fight evil more feared than I.
I protect those that beat me and cast me into the shadows.
For the guardians of heaven live closest to the gates of hell and I, the sheepdog, am often mistaken for the wolf.

You see the truth. The creatures more evil than I. Those that stalk from the shadows and attack the weak.
You see the need for my beastly.
You see the need for the fear of me.

I have saved them and the ones they love many a thankless times. Despite my actions their perceptions become reality. They see only the beast they hate. They see only the creature they ****.

You see a hero. You see past the beast and into the person. You see good where there is little. You give grace where none is deserved. You shed tears where they are mocked.

For I am beastly.
But to you...I am beauty.

You love me so; without fear.

Because of my upbringing and education, I'm a man who has substance and class.
But nobody will believe that if they learn that I have a hairy ***.
I have hair sticking out of my **** crack and hair on my **** cheeks.
I'm afraid that this information will be discovered and posted on Wikileaks.
People must never discover my secret, nobody can know.
And if they discover my terrible secret, they will have to go.
Yes you heard me right, when it comes to preserving my secret, I'm prepared to ****.
When it comes to my secret being discovered, I must make certain that it never will.
My sheepdog has less hair on his entire body than I have on and sticking out of my ****.
Don't you dare reveal mt secret to people or I'll come to your house and you will get cut.
I have an awesome job that pays over a million dollars each year.
But if people learn about my hairy ***, I can say goodbye to my career.
My wife has agreed to keep my secret but she complains and we bicker.
I shaved my *** a couple of times but when it grew back, it was even thicker.
My *** is hairy and my wife looks and smells like Jabba the Hutt.
Nobody can ever know that I have an extremely hairy ****.

My grandson Alex said something very profound and intriguing after his graduation ceremony.

I was complaining about how thin my hair had become and blamed it all on growing old. Alex looked at me with quizzical eyes partially covered by a mop of black sheepdog hair and declared,
"Well, Grandma you are an old lady."
I gave him a piercing look and said,
"True, but, remember this: The Soul is Eternal."

In that moment, my 14 year old grandson said that I reminded him of an old lady living in an off-the-beaten road shack. As I listened to him and the evocative images he spun I took the liberty of embellishing his description:

"Hidden by a dense patch of wild crafted herbs, a hint of mint, diamond needles darning their way around the bucolic scenery, a peculiar little hut comes into view.

The round oculus amethyst windows appear as portholed eyes to another world. If you pause and listen keenly you can distinctly hear the hum of otherworldly chants echoing from its eaves. Indeed, everything about this strange occult cottage exudes magical charm, you'd think it was inhabited by a priestess or something of that nature.

Slowly, I open the creaking door, puffs of rose moss incense and pooja camphor burn in small brass pots. Countless multi colored bottles, all different shapes and sizes, antique knick knacks, curiosities crowd the musty shelves. And a soft, rainbow mist floats through the room. This enigmatic Shack oozes wisdom......My Granny, her hair thinning, bits of silver creating a halo of stars, welcomes me. She gazes at me with a wise, weathered elderly smile while applying a red *** *** dot on my third eye and says:

"You know Alex the Soul is Ageless."

LOST IN FRANCE

In the distance
a dog throws its voice

so it seems
the trees are barking.

Sun and shadow
playing tag

between rows and rows
of trees.

France is made of
landscape and light.

I feel as if I am
walking in a painting

that is wet yet.

I nothing but
a mobile little smudge.

I drink in the light
as if my soul thirsted for it.

Now a yellow day
leaves its post

to chase me half way
down its road.

Now a Yorkie
guards the crossroads.

Here a sheepdog
silently trails me

until it has successfully
seen me off its turf.

I smile sheepishly.

I, lost and found
all at the one time.

Finally the road turns and
the village runs out to meet me.

I, now only lost
in wonder.

Picture a meadow:
Sheep graze peacefully,
Happily bleating
At one another and
Moving together,
Obliviously, to and fro in a sort of
Natural harmony.

Yet none stray too near
The treeline
At the edge,
For within the dense foliage,
The dark shadow,
Awaits sharp yellow teeth
And a swift end to peace.

A lone sheepdog watches
Over this flock,
Carefully, suspiciously,
Scrutinizing each member,
Searching vigorously, endlessly
For a hint of gray fur
Somewhere in all the wool.

My name means defender of mankind
My sign represents justice
Artemis is my champion
Protector of women
Who am I?
I am the defender of mankind
I protect those who cannot help themselves
I was a top candidate at a federal prison to  become a Correctional Officer
I turned it down because I was afraid.
Not of the job or the weight it carries
I wasn’t afraid of the danger of the walls or what lives inside them
On the contrary
That excited me
But that feeling
Gives me a chill to bone
I was afraid of the walls changing me
Bringing the worse out in me
I was going to be a part of a brotherhood
The thin grey line
I wasn’t afraid of the OC spray
I took that blow to the face just fine
I puked and choked along side of my brothers
But I noticed a change in me
A slight change
A part of me I’ve held on to for so long
A part of me the world hasn’t been able to take away
I noticed it starting to fade
I noticed it when I looked at the inmates
Us versus them
I was going to win at all cost
I didn’t want to fail my brothers
But that mentality I started to grow
It wasn’t me
I had to make a choice
I’m a defender of mankind
All of mankind
I found another way
To stay true to myself
I no longer represent the thin grey line
The law I embrace
I found another way to fight the wolves
I choose to protect the flock a different way
Not with fist, batons, and the OC spray
My words are my weapons of choice
I still fight the wolves
I’m no longer the sheepdog
I am
I will be
The shepherd

No grave could contain him.
He will always be young
in the classroom
waving an answer
like a greeting.

Buried alive -
alive he is
by the river
skimming stones down
the path of the sun.

When the tumor on the hillside
burst and the black blood
of coal drowned him,
he ran forever
with his sheepdog leaping
for sticks, tumbling together
in windblown abandon.

I gulp back tears
because of a notion of manliness.
After the October rain
the ****-heap sagged
its greedy coalowner's belly.

He drew a picture of a wren,
his favourite bird for frailty
and determination. His eyes gleamed
as gorse-flowers do now
above the village.

His scream was stopped mid-flight.
Black and blemished
with the hill's sickness
he must have been,
like a child collier
dragged out of one of Bute's mines-
a limp statistic.

There he is, climbing a tree,
mimicking an ape, calling out names
at classmates. Laughs springing
down the *****. My wife hears them
her ears attuned as a ewe's in lambing,
and I try to foster the inscription
away from it's stubborn stone.

Sunday for the churchgoer
the sower of the seed
I'm at home relaxing
with everything I need.

In the flock,
there's always that one
who tends to dawdle and to stray,
leading poor old shep the sheepdog
when it hides, to seek away.

And from the pew
religion too,
from the TV
one more soap,
but if one stray sheep reaches heaven
then for me,
there must be hope.

You do not cut the heads off a hydra, lest they should split, and two strike in place of one, no, learn from Hercules.

You burn the body and salt the bones and tar the earth where it fell.

You hunt the monster as a hatchling, route it out with dogs like a boar from the thicket before it can mature.

And if those who are the evil, hiding behind less monstrous faces, have hidden the torches and salt, slain the bloodhounds?

If heroes have been outlawed, the knowledge of ******* the monsters written out of history, truth become legend and legend lost?

A new generation of heroes will rise, from the most humble seeds, germinating under Promethean fire, and rediscover the old ways.

A maid will take her hair and braid it, cut if off and make it tinder for a torch, gather from her tears their salt, offer the strength of her arms.

An armorer, crippled, will limp on, and craft spears to heckle the beast, and a shepherd will make of the sheepdog a war hound to protect the flock.

Do you hear the earth pushing up, the shears and the lamentations, the blacksmith anvil ring, the baying on the moors?

You will.

I think all people are different
but I've always had an overactive imagination
inherited phantom guilt that built a cult following
like a genetic indoctrination
they said you can always get the milk for free,
but I want to eat the cow
everybody is looking sort of funny
where is the sheepdog now?

I think God is the Universe, expanding and exploding in waves
but I haven't been to mass in years, and I can't understand why living people need the dead in graves
what is clear is God as a concept is incomprehensible, not a matter of morals or principle
with spears and rifles we've argued our points, armies commanded by holy knaves
mankind faces a Gordian Knot, in his mind an insoluble bind, in truth the frayed ends are loose,
triumph assured, cut it in half and what answers have you got?
A ball of rope to tug of war for, attrition fighting called a truce
he thinks he is free to chase his horizons, but he is not

I think I am tired
but I slept all through the night the other day
come-bye the clock is about face and glaring down
and it seems I am all turned around, for I feel the other way
upside is the sun, downside the moon
so I will join the fleecing in here, peacefully from the policing, soon
will they remember me, from the point of balance I ever seek to walk
tip-toeing, steadily and quietly, for all the heated bleating I talk
will they care for me, as much as they look back, aware of my poor commands
I never could take time, though I had so much, I do grip and fetch with dense matter on my hands
they will not love me, nor should they if they do,
I am penned in where I belong, with every other one of you.

there was a little sheep dog.  he was black and white
i watched him round the sheep up.  it was such delight
following close behind them. so they wouldnt stray
for the little sheepdog this was his working day

he was very clever and knew just what to do
by the farmers whistle every time he blew
a charming little fellow as busy as can be
working with the sheep. a clever chap is he

Parable Of Paint.

I can remember an advertisement
on television back in the eighties,
a shaggy Olde English Sheepdog,
or was that the Dulox one, not sure.

I have been expatriated since then,
but what I have noticed is how UNO
and “ LIKE UNO " are synonymous
with every sentence used in Ireland.




Finn.