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

[DeepGreenEyes]

ha, yeah thanks for the read and comment dge

it projects rather more animosity towards politicians than, in truth, i feel but the poem sort of required it (it told me so!)

whitman is far more elegantly eloquent than i

Possessed by the nuse, were we?

 

[butters]

Possessed by the nuse, were we?

 

[butters]

they say

our moral compass wobbles
when imbibing alcohol
such as lowers inhibitions
(along with knickers, on a roll)

but this is nothing new and now
the public knew it well
from gutter-gin to fine champagne
the liver's living hell

it's not that we don't give a damn
our sozzled souls benighted
it's more a case of PARTAYY ON!
our lives beer-goggle sighted

 

[KathrynMartin]

I am not sure if it is intentional but the sour moral of the first two stanzas bites my tongue as I recite this to myself. I am not sure that your device of using the Caption as part of the poem works here. In the first stanza I would have enjoyed less professional language “such as” a more descriptive element of the lowering of those inhibitions. For me the last line of that stanza just falls off the language and content cliff.

The second stanza like the first recites facts although the third line is beautifully descriptive. I find myself sorting out words that seem to have used to fill a void and come up empty.

The third stanza I like a lot, but wish you had not used Caps and bastarded the word party. It distracts from the emphasis of the activity and looks too frat house for me. “sozzled souls benighted” is incredibly expressive for what you want to say. The whole stanza is in the end your justification, the crie de Coeur if you will of this piece. I would love for you to fix the first two.

So I will apologize for being entirely too forward and hope to find forgiveness.

 

[butters]

I am not sure if it is intentional but the sour moral of the first two stanzas bites my tongue as I recite this to myself. I am not sure that your device of using the Caption as part of the poem works here. In the first stanza I would have enjoyed less professional language “such as” a more descriptive element of the lowering of those inhibitions. For me the last line of that stanza just falls off the language and content cliff.

The second stanza like the first recites facts although the third line is beautifully descriptive. I find myself sorting out words that seem to have used to fill a void and come up empty.

The third stanza I like a lot, but wish you had not used Caps and bastarded the word party. It distracts from the emphasis of the activity and looks too frat house for me. “sozzled souls benighted” is incredibly expressive for what you want to say. The whole stanza is in the end your justification, the crie de Coeur if you will of this piece. I would love for you to fix the first two.

So I will apologize for being entirely too forward and hope to find forgiveness.

hi Kathryn

seriously, no apologies accepted, no forgiveness required - this is just a holding place of some stuff; in this instance an irreverent piece that moves quite deliberately from 'up-tight' to just 'tight' as part of a challenge elsewhere, and the frat feel of Partayy was exactly the intention since I don't go in for drinking till I'm insensible D. it wasn't taking itself seriously, though I do approve of you putting forward your thoughts on anyone's writing, mine included should you have time and inclination to do so. thankyou!

 

[champagne1982]

bumping up for Annie

 

[butters]

VENOMOUSsssss


hiss-story
has given me something of a raw deal
i feel

the pair were sssweet
but not the brightessst
you know?
i offered education
hoping to broaden their horizonssss -
turnss out i did that, at leassst

sseemss to me
where they went wrong
was in not conssssuming the core:
everyone knowss the core iss where it'ss at
and a little knowledge can be a dangerousss thing

fig leavess aren't ssuch a hot look
either
not without perssonal grooming
and the very devil to ssstay put
ammiright?

and i'd jusst like to sssay
if one spendsss mosst one'ss time on one'ss belly
sometimesss
sometimessssss
*cough*
a little elevation can be nice

i told god
"you can't keep kidss kidss forever
jusst so you got someone to wipe your arssse when you're passst it"
he got a bit pissssed about that
called me a wissssearssssse
gave me thisss lisssp

heh
i can work it

and no-on ever ssaid it wasss an apple
sheeesh

 

[HarryHill]

Brilliant!

 

[butters]

Brilliant!

hope it made you smile because it did me as i wrote it ty

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

hope it made you smile because it did me as i wrote it ty

I found it months late, but it did make me smile.

And I agree that it's brilliant. I want to see it written in swoopy, serpentine lines.

 

[butters]

I found it months late, but it did make me smile.

And I agree that it's brilliant. I want to see it written in swoopy, serpentine lines.

thankyou for this comment

 

[HarryHill]

Good to see you Chipper, long time and all that.

 

[butters]

Good to see you Chipper, long time and all that.

hey Harry you too, dude, and yeah . . . not doing anything poeticky right at the moment - the muse and the flesh are unwilling for now. it'll return, and then just try shutting me up.

hope you're doing ok, baretender

 

[HarryHill]

Yes Ma'am

Still pouring that vin 'ordinare

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

thankyou for this comment

Always a pleasure.

And by always, I mean, you know, about 95 percent of the time.

 

[butters]

just cataloguing

sophie's skin

yours is the light of snow on the moon
cajoling stars
making promises
from afar
and yet
beneath
there beats a pulse
that
should it break the surface of my thoughts
would blossom
carmine lotus
and snow would know it only stands enhanced




when no poem springs to mind
i find i
close my eyes
and listen . . . feel
the rush of blood through veins and vessels
buzz in ears and pump of heart
i feel and listen for some art
and follow pulse to fingertips
that fumble keys
producing
this



do not fear the falling of silence
words cannot take its measure

hear
the melody of silence
there
in the eye of a bird
rain on skin
a curling of toes
reflections in a glass of wine
the breath of flame
ink
drying on the page
in your lips
within your hands
driven ever onwards
in your heart



popcorn and a can of beer
carbs and water
sweet salt and sparkle
the stuff of life



enigma
in the heart of the rose
one tries to keep one's balance
on the beam



sometimes
when the flesh is heavy
reluctant to fight the weight of inertia
the mind dances free
smiling



hold a leaf up to the light
"is this even poetry?" she asks



do that thing you do
you know
where you look at a cloud
allow your thoughts
to . . . become

sparklingmistdampdrizzlinglight

and the tree
there
in the garden?

pithyrigiditysuckinguprightintoballetofsugarshimmeredsunglossedleaves

the river-pebble, slow and dull beneath the sun yet so so tactile?

coolwetbeneathwormdancedwarmshoulderedcontentedsolidyetstilldreamingofthe touchofrunningwater

 

[butters]

one

it is said the yogi weeps
face buried in wooden palms
but i taste no trace of tears
sense, instead, a hiding
a closing off of light that
his great head might process
the world in a different way

interesting experiment
but . . . to be fixed that way forever?

it is said the yogi weeps



two

no napkins


bite
into that herb and seasoned crust
hot hot the fat juices flow
transport a tongue, transport the mind
back in time
to two hands buried in bloodied pelt
canines deep in red red meat
that satisfying crunch of bone
flesh
........still
...............twitching



three

snow-decor

my cat wasn't happy
with the changes to her outdoor loo
has left me a pointed request
at the top of the stairs
for indoor facilities



four

if you're going to go out burning...

fan the flames
burn white-hot till
nothing's left but ash

far sadder the blackened damage
the melted twist and warp
the half-death


five

midnight

is blue
warm and close-clipped

endless pockets of possibility
within reach



six

suffocate in the white space
no words to gasp or
serried ranks in which to hide
I-spy
a fishy tale - slippery at best
but, yes, i'm left here
stranded on a gritty bank
grasping at air

 

[butters]

nano-clams and other molluscs

immeasurable, the tidal sweep,
to creatures small as grains of sand
that favour jet-propulsion and
will seed-like secrets safely keep.

what warms an eyeless clam's thin blood?
how beats a tiny shellfish heart?
is love, like food, a filtered art?
a happy clam a clam in mud?

Ming, the arctic bivalve, swam
far longer than his hinged-shell friends;
did his means prolong his ends?
was Ming the king of all his clan?

do other molluscs all aspire
to live and filter? give their pledge?
surviving, walk the razor's edge,
evade the pan, and fear the fire?

scallops, with their many eyes,
discern a distant, filtered sun
yet, still, from fate they cannot run
and timeless seas shall fall, and rise.

 

[HarryHill]

Wow, just wow: I've seen all of these ^UP^ in one place or another around Lit. but to see them all confined within such a comparatively small space is breathtaking.

 

[butters]

Wow, just wow: I've seen all of these ^UP^ in one place or another around Lit. but to see them all confined within such a comparatively small space is breathtaking.

*blimey. breaks out the oxygen mask for harry*

thankyou

 

[butters]

attempt at a ghazal for annie's teach-in

Brothers in arms


I look across the hills past all the beers gone by
the setting sun sits softened by the years gone by

And through the outward calm my skin still chills and bumps
a judder of the heart recalling cheers gone by

My lonely courage shivers, but it's just the light
that's bleeding from the land still seeping fears gone by

My eyes, not once they were, drink shadows' cool refrain
the landscape's stained blood-red with all the tears gone by

Beneath the sleeping mounds and ghosting poppy fields
the distant drums still rumble for my peers gone by

May they find peace beyond the living's hot torment
of living yet; brothers in arms - my dears - gone by



with Angeline's fix: (ty A )

I look across the hills past all the beers gone by
the setting sun sits softened by the years gone by

And through the outward calm my skin still chills and bumps
a judder of the heart recalling cheers gone by

My lonely courage shivers, but it's just the light
that's bleeding from the land still seeping fears gone by

My eyes, ill-used by time, drink shadows' cool refrain
the landscape's stained blood-red with all the tears gone by

Beneath the sleeping mounds and ghosting poppy fields
the distant drums still rumble for my peers gone by

May they find peace beyond the living's hot torment
of living yet; brothers in arms - my dears - gone by

 

[butters]

relativity theory

if you were only
as thin as one atom
one wide
one tall
one deep
you can bet your atomic arse electrons
would still think you're fat


*


simple enigma

want to rip away the layers
festering and fulsome
necrosis shucked
delve
between meat and sinew
funnel through
arterial refrain
expose the beat then
head straight to the brain
in a multi-score of synapse
to be cast upon the stars
and reach for more
bathe quietly in mystery
stripped of raw


*


there's a china chicken
all polka dots and skinny red legs
green beak and comb
on a hazy blue rotundness
looking at me
with the patience of clay -
wondering why?

 

[butters]

it used to be a direct route
thought to pen to paper
with much crossing out and rewriting with each version
tidy tidy tidy
now the pull of electricity
stirs
a switch opens
and the ideas course
fan
fingertips the medium
words on the screen a neater reflection
the blinking cursor a permanent reminder of
on
waiting
continue


*


harry's poem

makes me wonder about twelvio
if he's got his eyes on this one
lessons have been eaten and absorbed
new growth startling
green, and fresh
reaching
neither knowing nor caring the blue's further away than it looks
because
after all
it's that space between -
the void -
that begs the filling

*

close eyes
slip
within
the slow, lazy lava
step-swim
fire-proof
find a brightness
surface
post


*


trees sweat their glaze on limp leaves
waiting for a cool-breathed breeze to lift
their spirits, redirect the hardest darts
of sunlight slicing at these itching eyes
as i wait, skirts raised to solemn thighs
hoping for a summer shower

 

[HarryHill]

Harry's poem

makes me wonder about twelvio
if he's got his eyes on this one
lessons have been eaten and absorbed
new growth startling
green, and fresh
reaching
neither knowing nor caring the blue's further away than it looks
because
after all
it's that space between
the void
that begs the filling

..
Oh butters *cries*

 

[butters]

..
Oh butters *cries*

*passes H a tissue*

sorry, dude, didn't mean to upset you and stuff