butter's stuff: the good, the ugly, and the incomplete

[42Below]

here you go, bflagsst, a few either already published or aired online. I've a fair amount of newer material but am considering where to sub or if even to sub at all.

a smallish one:

and still i stare

her hands, her dress, her hair
all fail
to tear my gaze aside

from eyes
whose sadness is a shockwave
breaking over me

they say she's crazy




the somewhere other-looking boy

with filthy hair and mis-matched shoes
eyes soft-focus dreaming blues
this boy is somewhere other-looking

with the mind of a child
and the body of a man
he only knows pleasure
in the palm of his hand
he walks like a sleeper
a smile coasts his lips
and he's treading on water -
a silence in his fingertips

(published in Cold Eels about 4 years back)



wintered

still waiting for the snow to start to fall
you'll miss the bluebells' haze on woodland floor
the sigh of summer breeze across the waves
and let me tell you, watcher, what is more
you'll miss the cider-light of autumn days
their crisper air and sensual delights
their tart perfume and subtle, russet glaze -
you'll miss them, craving only winter's ice



andthen there's this one from approx 6 years back I think, published in Epiphanies and Other Asurdities. Sigh. While I am still fond of it for various reasons, there are changes I would have made looking back at it.

and you and you and you


too soon, too soon, the eagle flew
while you were busy drawing down
the moon into those icy hands,
purchasing one-eyed wisdom
to crowd your poppied mind
until you could no longer stand
but gently tumbled tousled thoughts
to fall asleep in twilight lands,
asleep in the laps of legends.

and, as you dreamt, a river of woe
washed over you and carried you down
to those blasted banks, where the rocking stone
could be toppled by the gentlest touch;
you stroked the smooth-skinned serpent's egg
and, though asleep, you cried real tears
for emotions that somehow eluded you
and for the names of the faces
you seemed to remember
with a distant and palsied anxiety.

and you dreamt you wrote a mystic piece
where vague and shuffling demons danced;
where Odin cast aside his mask
and settled on your shoulders, round
a mammoth task:
a burden irredeemable - a lance;
a lance to bear in diamond jousts,
advancing through the teeth of fear
to seize that chance to win the soured prize.

Methusulah, with his long grey beard
whispered in your sleeping ear
of fools and wise men, sons and daughters
the Devil's love for holy water
of a single, human footprint in the sand;
of the perils of duplicity
the rigours of respectibility
of such passions as can tear apart a man.

and on the sharp infliction of
such sorrows' textured wounds, you woke
with knotted hair and eyes still chasing phantoms;
and even though the darkstream coursed
still dully in your veins, you spoke
of fields of blood and lonely Death's cold tantrums;
and lifelong cravings threatening to choke ...
to strain and break the slenderest of throats.

with that distempered mind you reached
for lightless needles littering the floor;
and, as a stray dog to its vomit, warm,
to poisoned dreams did you return, once more.

Ok. Big Opinion Onions here Feedback right!

and still i stare / love the lower caps title don’t know about the and, it feels a little too well worn. I know impossible not to do. I see your and (and lol) pour you a still i stare / i stare still.

the somewhere other-looking boy (another lower caps title, i like all this lower caps energy so much i might pinch it (or shall we say be inspired by it lmao). I don’t know about that ‘filthy’ hair though? Filthy seems a little too strong but then again filthy blues.

I see your ‘filthy’ and play my disarrayed (my big arsed opinion seems to fit somewhere other-looking). i think i am altogether-liking this; over sharing

wintered inconsistent tenses wintered past tense (the poem seems to be waiting as in present or future focused). Im’see’ your past tense and raise you a present participle; wintered vs wintering maybe(?) idk.

Drum roll… mic drop: and you and you and you

As always have fun throwing this feedback out or frying my green onions.

 

[butters]

@42Below

thankyou so much for your time and thoughts! you are probably right and if these ones weren't so old (15, 20 years some of them) and published i might have changed them as your thoughts sit well. always always happy to hear constructive feedback or even just 'opinions' such as we all mostly have

 

[42Below]

@42Below

thankyou so much for your time and thoughts! you are probably right and if these ones weren't so old (15, 20 years some of them) and published i might have changed them as your thoughts sit well. always always happy to hear constructive feedback or even just 'opinions' such as we all mostly have

I realized realize I am time traveling when reading these poems. It makes commenting all the more enjoyable. A bit like a bee hitting a windshield no longer present

 

[butters]

the things we tell ourselves

creations born of vacuums
imagination
the burn to understand
all we don't
or cannot—yet

tales that evolve
as knowledge grows
and lightning's relabeled
as more than Iškur's rage
Zeus' tantrums
Raijin, Indra, Perun or Thor
being froggy

and how total solar eclipses
are a matter of mathematics
yet still cosmic to experience
silencing birds and raising hairs on our necks

we seek understanding
and understand the power of naming
the power of words
how they can soothe
and, sometimes, absolve us
from blame

how we need to be the authors
of our own stories
to continue writing our existence
beyond 'The End' assigned
by life's biographer
the vastness of un-being too much
for simian brains such as ours

 

[butters]

that ineffable space

is there a name for it—
that space between frames
between in and ex-halation
the flare of one synapse
and the next?

non-moments upon whose momentousness
the nameable and countable depend:

that micro-second before a big bang
the period of pent energy
just before tectonic plates release
the pivotal point before clouds loose their rain...
the ineffable space of time it takes
moisture to evaporate
from a dying woman's eye.

 

[butters]

vulnerable

nakedness
isn't something Eve and Adam worried about
at first
and babies certainly don't give a shit

but once we grow used to something
be it clothes
guns
religion
or rings

we fear the threat
of being stripped
we shiver
sure of our vulnerability