Companionship
True companionship
Comes from creating what you want
Creating the environment
Letting each other go
To see if we keep coming back
Home to freedom
Home to peace
Home to love
Home to our selves
Away into chaos
A way into the darkness
To find the light
The joy
The unknown
And live a fulfilling life.
So Tied Up – Cold War Kids & Bishop Briggs
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
You don’t get to my age
Without learning a thing or two
I’ve learned to trust no one
But myself
I’m not about to risk everything
On blind faith, alone.
You think you’ve been burned?
You’re not the only one.
Do you think I haven’t been there?
Because I have, and it didn’t end well.
You think your trust is broken?
You have no idea about my life.
I’m not about to risk it all, again
When your cards are not on the table.
I am an aging woman, in a man’s world
Willing to show you who I am
To a point. The rest is up to you.
I am a partner, not a trophy
An equal, not a mistress
Older, wise, psycic and astute.
I am here now because I trusted
More than once, twice too many.
Don’t you dare tell me I have broken your trust!
When I’m the only one who is here for you.
I am still here, waiting for you
To stop cutting off your nose
Yet you expect me to trust you
Your word, your honour, your faith?
That only goes so far
Actions speak much louder than words ever will.
You have no idea how much I gave
Am willing to give, how much I have
To bring to your table —
Treat you like the King you are
But I don’t have first world choices
And I don’t want third world realities
Everything I do, is to survive
Calculating risks, hedging my bets
I don’t have to be dishonourable to do it.
I can see well enough when I look.
What I saw, was not what I wanted to see.
You, your tells betrayed you.
Nothing more, nothing less.
You are not willing or able to see me
Yet, but you will.
The best five months of your life
Is compared to borderline personalities from your past
And those voices set you up to fail.
Still, you choose to see only what you expect to see in me.
I am not here to play games.
I chose to be with you because it felt good
But you are uncomfortable with good.
You don’t know yourself as well as you think.
You are not me.
I am holistically unique and
Cruelty is not my style.
I don’t kick the dog when he’s down,
I take responsibility for my part
You will not humble yourself enough to bare.
I have not abandoned you
You pushed me away, again.
I see you for what you are
Right here, right now a mirror.
I can roll with you quite content
But I keep her on a leash
(You know exactly what I’m talking about)
Till I sense something isn’t true.
The difference is I feel,
I express and I talk to you about it.
I asked you to meet my darkness,
You left me.
I process my thoughts and feelings raw,
I know no other way
To show you what I’m willing to risk
Of myself for you.
You lie, because you think it protects me,
I call it as I see it.
I saw.
You will never know who I am
Until you see yourself through my eyes and feel.
If you actually love me
You’d show it when shit gets real
By being kinder, softer
Compassionate and loving.
I don’t need your help
to take out the rubbish.
You discarded me
Because I called bullshit.
Does that mean I was right?
Prove me wrong.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
Worry, picking apart my brain, forms tentacles & infiltrates the darkness demolishing barriers discarding all sense of reason.
Fear, prys open the latch & pokes it’s ugly noggin out amongst folded loops, sensing freedom & an opportunity to breed.
I recoil; form more sunken chests & box in my indignation, push it back down subterranean & throw away the key.
I threaten to rip the legs off my giant colossal squid if she doesn’t do as she’s told!
My kraken nemesis.
That self entitled bitch, sticks her beak in where it doesn’t belong!
I square off, walk the grid like an executioner plans strategy & make the first move.
I am flawed. No better than humanity subdues & ignites.
I feel ashamed
I feel ashamed
I feel ashamed
Finding my place, my people & my self taking an age to surface.
I can’t make head or tails of it.
I float, drift around in the ether, neither up or down — threads like silk ferry me away. Is this what it’s like to crack?
Psychicly split down the middle.
One half tending the earth, grows old gracefully, wears away the lines to paint a picture. The other chips away at my sanity like a termite.
She is mad. A lost cause. A first world problem searching for a third world solution, juxtaposes sense.
I don’t know if I’m any good at treading water. She’s drowning.
I think I’m gonna crack.
Who is there for me?
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
Isolation
Lonliness
Altruistic tendencies.
A real man looks after his woman.
Builds up hope
Says all the right things
Means what he says
Does what he means.
Love.
Means nothing if it’s bullshit.
Is he going to break me?
Is he breaking me?
Old habits?
Does he want me to leave?
Could I leave?
Would I keep coming back?
Hurting me
Being hurt
Loving you
Being loved.
What is magic?
Where do I belong?
Destiny.
Who is there for me?
Who is there for you?
How long do I wait for what exactly –
Love, security, money, both?
Hibernation.
Am I discarded?
Be like water.
Do I belong here yet?
A limbo suffragette.
A caregiver.
Am I just a caregiver?
He doesn’t want me for that.
What does he want me for?
Companionship.
Am I expected to be faithful?
Am I enough?
Convenience
A means to an end?
I’m not sure what he wants.
Friendship.
Am I on the market?
I’m not sure I’m available.
Marriage.
Will I accept the contract?
Do I really belong here?
I want a partner.
He needs a wife
Wants a legacy.
More children?
Hanging by a thread
Dangling on a ledge.
Friend, enemy, lover, acquaintance.
Loving.
Leaving?
Family, security
Money, happiness
Asking for nothing
Expecting something.
Dignity.
Respect.
Honour.
Am I worthy?
Is he worth it?
Will he build me up?
Bring me down?
Take me on?
Walk away?
Why does he want me?
What did he get?
What am I taking?
What did I get?
What is he taking?
Just roll with it.
Wait for nothing.
Be grateful for everything.
The Devils’ going to make me rich.
I don’t have to worry.
We’re all in it for something.
Yet you offer me everything & nothing.
I just want to love and be loved.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
His aura hell bent; Phoenix halo,
sparks, fire
& inertia creep.
Cool swagger sways a third eye,
the back of his head
scans in infared.
The Rainmaker’s blood
red right hand fisted to brawl,
gets it done.
Dirty deeds wipe the slate
clean — a power vacuum sealed.
Still waters run deep.
%
Hozier moves the tempest
to where the heart meets
the sun & the moon.
Atlas, holding up
the weight of the world,
brings him back down to Earth.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
The best thing
since sliced bread
this partnership / relationship.
Two whole slabs of
canna-buttered magic,
set the scene for
an esoteric mind fuck that
wrecks our bed,
churns what the water gave us
into fountains of esctasy.
You’ve ruined me.
Turned my counterparts
into full beam,
full steam ahead
where I don’t want to hide. Hiccups
where opposing forces
try to fuck with our chi,
set us back a step or two
but we bounce, roll & resolve. Easy
to give up — walk away,
put grandiose expectations down
to paranoid delusions of grandeur.
Our past lives set us up
to fail, prove that point
we once knew without a shadow.
Done with kowtow!
Fire; vibrating nuclear fission
fuels my frequency, propels
inertia from the fulcrum,
devouring adversity like a black hole
creates nothing out of something.
I make peace my lover, pray
to my Godhead & surrender
my self to you & only you.
My happy bubble
blessed by a big God
blessed by a bigger Goddess,
stirring up a pagan concoction
that’s good enough for royalty.
Good enough, is good enough!
You are my equal.
I will fight to the death
to hold on to you, knowing
I need to let go
ride the lightening
set the Phoenix alight into freedom
before the day is done.
You’re big, blue & beautiful
my whole world right here, now
centred in my universe
Florence & the Machine
creating an atmosphere for us
to breathe.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
Wide open, heart splayed fish knife style
Psyche, screaming white light laser beams; shoots
all remnants of Eros back into the ether
from that gaping hole he left behind, where he once belonged.
Back into the darkness.
Back into the arms of Hades.
Charon mimicking that elusive eternal light with his sway,
caressing Eros once again.
Psyche, abandoned
sinks like a torpedoed battleship straight to the bottom — much to Aphrodite’s delight.
Zeus, doing us all a favour by staying away this time,
crash lands lightening bolts a million miles from now.
One can only imagine the carnage.
Respect is earned.
It costs nothing to behave with honour.
Psyche deserves much more than angry lip service.
Love is not a fucking game!
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I don’t want to go to Church;
Have to kneel for a scrap of bread,
Have to beg for forgiveness,
Have to swallow an empty vessel for a measly sip of port wine.
All of it, on my divine time —
For a bullet with my name on it.
I don’t want to be told what to do;
When I am deemed worthy enough for you.
Where I can live, when you decide
Who I can be with, if it suits them.
What I can wear, to show off my hour-glass figure & classic class.
How I earn my pittance pay & not be dependent on you for anything —
That doesn’t meet with family approval.
I don’t want to live this way;
Waiting for a skin & bitch bone
Salivating over moldy morsels
Wagging my mangy tail,
Waiting for that prayer of approval.
I am of Mary Magdalene.
The Patron Saint of Prostitutes
The red right hand of Jesus —
His only true partner in crime.
I am a Goddess in my own right
& I deserve to be equal, besides
I don’t take kindly to being manipulated by Romans or Benedictine
Monks, attempting to make meals on wheels look A La Carte.
Men who would starve a loved one, & feed a stranger, if it meant they were a step closer to the light.
Attonement casts an evil shadow —
Double standards rape & pillage your family values & family members drop like flies amongst the lies.
/
Heart’s bleed out through cathedrals & stained glass window’s, while you profess your love in gypsy spades.
You piss all over me like a stinking leper!
You, who would decide if I live or die!
Let those who cast the first stone wallow in self pity because I turn my back.
I walk away from you & yours, my bright future fading into despair like the grandiose mirage that it was.
All of it, on your terms.
You would discard me in a heartbeat.
Your entitlement precedes your entourage of everything & nothing,
Where you would set limits on love to the detriment of your own broken heart.
So be it!
These are all moot points in the grand master plan anyway.
The great scheme of things to come, comes at a much greater cost & one I can live without.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
In the depths
Of my despair, flawed
Imperfections serve only to pander to Delilah.
She is much too fast for freedom, too slow to let go.
She could never bring her self to Samson half arsed.
Her darkness tempers his desire
Cool, waters his deflated ego
And she, too far away from home
Floats like a lotus.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
Let the water take us down
Sinking in
Under your skin
Amongst the blood & bone
Psyche,
Cocooned in the marrow & stem
Cells honeycomb;
A brittle, fragile hokey-pokey helix
Bittersweet & delicious.
To where the river runs red
Hades, scries a foothold & clings
To the matrices of you & I
Of our past lives & love.
Psyche, licking her lips
Offers herself to him
Desire sinks her teeth in
Biting off more than she can chew
& feeds on the canker & stench
Of death.
Let the water take us down
Hades, warming Psyche to ember
Psyche, tempering Hades to surrender
& all the essence of my being
Is holding space for you.
To wash us both clean
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I’m only as good as my last poem, and that sucked a kumara.
So, why do I care what some hua thinks about me?
I’d rather kia kaha and hīkoi tóku mahi.
To stand strong and walk the talk.
It is what it is.
Ka kité ano apopo kurī.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I’m not that kind of girl.
I am that kind of girl.
I can separate work and love.
I can’t separate work and love.
I know what I want.
I don’t know what I want.
Laughter and light.
Sadness and dark.
I don’t like one night stands.
I could like one night stands.
My heart is not for sale.
My heart is open for business.
I’m not a fuck buddy.
I could be a fuck buddy.
I am so much more.
I am all there is.
I want to be number one.
I don’t want to mean that much.
So I can learn to trust.
So I will never learn.
I don’t want to be second best.
I want to be what you want me to be.
I am worthy of love.
I am unworthy of love.
I want to be desired.
I don’t want to be desired.
I am a loving woman.
I am incapable of love.
I’m not an after-hours opportunity.
I am open all hours.
My time is precious.
My time is wasted.
I want to feel like I belong.
I don’t want to be here.
Not at someone’s beck and call.
On someone’s speed dial.
I’m not available for players.
I am available for everyone.
I have integrity.
I am immoral.
I want a partnership.
I don’t want a relationship.
Equality and compromise.
Selfishness and control.
I don’t want to feel alone.
I feel alone.
With or without.
Without or with.
I want to be independent.
I am co-dependent.
Choose my own lane.
Follow the leader.
I don’t want to settle.
I settle for much less.
When I deserve the best.
I don’t deserve any better.
I want to feel secure.
I feel trapped.
Relax and unwind.
Wound up like a spring.
I’m not someone’s distraction.
I am someone’s excuse.
Present not present.
Affect not effect.
I want to be happy.
I don’t want to feel good.
Spontaneously combust.
Slowly decay.
I don’t want to cry.
I want to smile.
No more tears for fears.
Lots of laughs and hope.
I want to be loved.
I am unloveable.
Expand my horizon.
Stay locked away.
I don’t want to be used.
I am a user.
I want a place to call ours.
I like my own space.
I can’t change who I am.
I could change if I wanted to.
I want it all.
I don’t want anything.
I am the kind of girl you take home.
I’m not the kind of girl you take home.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
You’re dead to me. I’m dead.
My mother with her snide, jealous perversion sticking her tongue down my husband’s throat.
Sick cunt
Shit cunt
My mother’s a fucked up, narcissistic shit cunt
and I’m a whore.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
She fell for him.
She learned to feel ashamed.
Feelings; the dirty word for love, left her sitting in the dark on my balcony, stubbed out like a cigarette butt.
He had to go.
He learned to feel afraid.
Feelings; the Venus Flytrap of love, left him closing the door to my apartment, shut down like a stubborn ass mule.
Still.
Denial stole like a thief.
Feelings; think it would be easier to maintain a smile, but neither of them like bullshit or manipulation or lies.
…and I was starting to feel unencumbered until you came along, upping the anti with your sweet smile, ruining my bed, creating an arrhythmia of anomalies in my insulated penthouse.
…and I can see the headlights up ahead in the distance – high beams dip, then cut a trail through the darkness mimicking my lashes for you.
…and I think I’m ready? I think not, decide to ease back on the throttle; engine brake scream rebounding somewhere around midnight.
…and he says he’s not sure, but he wants to be King of the Mountain, the first to reach the top like Brock but without the fanfare.
…and his heart is in her hands. Headphones tapping out instructions driving himself around the bend while I wrestle with red eye and a juxtaposed stick/column shift.
…and we both get what we want. Safety nets and a pit crew who know the ropes better than any nightmare script or Greg Murphy wannabe.
…and all at once I become redundant. I can no longer see the warning signs and cats eyes through my windshield, except for tail lights.
…and you are leaving me behind. It’s time to open the windows and turn up Green Day and contemplate the waiting unknown. “Rage and love, the story of my life”.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
Green Day ‘Are We The Waiting’ YouTube
I am a whirlwind of indignity
A seething wrath of maelstrom
I am the all-seeing probing eye
Calling out subterfuge and lies
I am the calm before the storm
The thunder and lightening excuse
I am the violent edge of reason
The force behind insanity’s truce.
I am the truth, the way and the light
Infiltrating your delusions of grandeur
I am the beacon warning lighthouse
Flashing morse code in the ether
I am my self inside all your drama
Calling it as I see it
I am beyond my years of sacrafice
Laying my heart to rest.
I am the Barron River snake
Carving my way through life
I am wide awake woke
And there’s no where you can hide
I am the foothold on a cliff
The finger spaces between
I am the carnal knowledge incumbent
Hell bent on escape.
I am a fire woman’s Psyche
A Goddess to the core
I am your Hades vengeance incarnate
With nothing left to lose
I am your Freddy Kruger nightmare
The Punch and Judy show
I am your juicy jezebel whore
Mary Magdalene halo.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
i
Cyberus the black dog, creeps in under Mary’s skin, licking his lips, penetrating her holes, gnawing away at her sinewy tendons and succulent bones.
He rapes her subconscious crawl space, probing his wet nose into her closet crotch, sniffing out the buried remains there like Cujo; gnarled lips, protruding tongue and crazed eye stare.
Mary pricks her ears, Cyberus howls at the April blood moon, his mourn calling her out from behind her silvery veil, behind her mindful interludes – moonbeams bleed crimson and red rivers pour from her nightmares blurring the edges of her days.
Cyberus spreads his malaise like a disease.
He infiltrates cavities and grey matter mimicking the ebb and flow of tides; dopamine highs and serotonin lows, squalls hovering on the horizon – the ramblings of a mad woman batting her eye lashes, baring her sharp teeth.
ii
Mary flatter’s her fans upright for .50c an hour to satisfy Cyberus’ insatiable appetite, gulping down terabytes like an insomniac slip streaming strip scenes and Mary rubs herself raw, learning how to love the hands that feed her.
The water slides off her duck downed back, down valleys and cracks her bareback fingertips squeezing every last drip from her drops.
Mary turns off the shower, wipes away the steam from the window and peers outside. Two stray dogs have escaped lockdown, causing havoc on the streets.
She would take them both in and give them a good feed, if she had a backyard big enough to bury bones.
iii
Tom stands outside on the pavement, peers up at the window, his threadbare trenchcoat just as superfluous as his empty pockets, except for the cornerstone content bulge. He watches Mary’s jailbird swagger dance and sway behind a steam curtain.
iv
Cyberus can feel her skin crawl, he allows himself to rise – settling in between her mind and the blurred edges of breasts, buttocks and inner thighs.
Infared penetrating his night vision.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
The doorbell rings one point five metres away.
Jack, steps back and waits, his head bowed in deference. A shudder circulates through his body and returns to his groin where his pathetic little worm jerks awake momentarily before it retreats, almost disappearing.
Domina, hazmat suit fitted, respirator adjusted and hands fully gloved, makes one final survey of her apartment noting everything in it’s rightful place before opening the door.
‘I see you followed my directions correctly, eventually’, she quipped.
‘Place your shoes in the bucket and strip’.
Her deadpan face and hardened stare conveying a don’t-fuck-with-me stance.
Domina’s new fetish was playing out like a Hunger Games episode: full lockdown, curfew and quarantine rules apply.
‘Follow me’, she commanded, leading the way to the bathroom.
‘Shower, put on the hazmat suit and mask and come into my den’.
Jack does as he is told, noticing the hairs on his arms and neck bristle and shrink back as the icy air-conditioning slaps his skin.
He’d been fantasizing about this day, ever since the first wave of Coronavirus (Corvid 19) swept across Europe, with Italy almost decimated in it’s wake.
It reminded him of his mortality, the beck and whim of governments and George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian nightmare coming into fruition. It made him feel alive, on the contrary, gave him a reason to live out his last days letting go of the old ways, going out on his terms.
Domina was a survivor. Gone were the days of luxurious 24 hour bookings, champagne and wads of cash. It was adapt or die slowly in her isolation, knowing her body wouldn’t be found for weeks.
These were the days of demeaning quickies and blow n’ go’s for a fraction of the price and the odd apocalypse fantasy that gave her just enough extra to remember how she once felt secure. Now, she controlled her working environment to suit and insisted on safety protocol.
Jack looked at himself in the mirror, putting on his mask. He was reduced to an anonymous automaton. Nameless, faceless and nothing more than a number in a system designed to suck every last drop of humanity from his wretched soul, if he even had one. A nobody. A pitiful excuse for a human being. He wanted to feel the humiliation of his meaningless existence played out one last excruciating time.
Domina watched her pain slut enter and ordered him to get on all fours on the bed. She picked up a 1 metre length of flexible plastic pipe and gave him six of the best in quick, hard succession.
/ / / / / /
Jack felt the weight of the whole world reign down. Searing pain shot through him and waves rippled along the length of his flacid cock awakening from it’s morbid slumber to stand at attention. It was all he could do to stop from crying out.
Jack knew he would fail, miserably and so did she.
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Nefertiti has her father’s eyes: blue grey, round and slightly protruding but entirely captivating. The all-seeing eye of Horus and Crow’s feet compliment her aesthetic smile by design. She enters the chamber, swathed in flowing layers of ivory silk adorned with lapis lazuli, onyx and handcrafted strands of golden pearls.
Akhenaten sinks low. Robe, legs and heart open admiring her curves, her sweet sway – ripe fruit seducing his eyes and craven appetite with every languid step.
Nefertiti slides in between. Akhenatens’ serpentine manhood rears, her narcissis skin soothsayer hips, drape and he slips, thrusts and bursts! She lifts, slides and rides his chariots rhythm, beaming through Ra’s realm and back again into her self, sated.
Amarna steps aside, hides behind a sandstone pillar. Stealing moments, she watches the lovers embrace, arch and peek.
She notices the tingles first, then a soft thudding throb that intensifies with every passing moment. A gasp! An electric spasm shooting upward from her liquid apex, filling her with euphoria. She quickly muffles her mouth, burying her face in her hands and shrinks back into the shadows.
Nefertiti pricks her ears and looks over her shoulder, peering back into the chamber. Akhenaten raises up on his elbows and follows her gaze, glimpsing a wisp as it pulls back out of sight.
‘Step into the light’, he commands, lifting Nefertiti from his rod, setting her aside.
‘Come forward slave’, calls Nefertiti, beckoning the shadow from the dark.
Amarna bows her head in an odd mixture of shame and excitement, tepidly stepping a toe out from behind the scene, testing her courage with fright, flushed cheeks betraying her desire.
Moving forward, she stands deferred waiting for her next command, allowing her hot wetness and damp musk scent to allay her senses.
Nefertiti glares. Akhenaten stares, his mouth parting at the recognition of his newest and most beautiful sacred qedesha. He leans into Nefertiti and whispers Amarna’s name, betraying his lust. She turns, spurned then reads Akhenatens desire, rekindling her own.
‘You have come to join us unannounced Amarna’?, Nefertiti leads. ‘What have you to offer your King and Queen that we have not taken before?’
‘Ripe fruit, my Queen, and moist Basbousa’…
To be continued…
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Move over Corona!
You’d have to be bloody blind to believe Corvid19 is the dreaded lurgi: it’s only the common cold repackaged into the dreaded flu, commandeered to implement the first wave of a Globalist attack, the last Custer fuck for the dying imperialistic dream.
The bourgeois are creaming themselves for the last time, while socialism rises like a rogue wave revolting in it’s wake, leaving a trail of destruction in search of the snake – waiting for a drum roll and the last head to fall.
30,000 U.S. troops on the march in time to strategically coincide, singing My Corona and Uncanny Boy and the world follows the Pied Piper like a zombie hoard to a mass genocide. No masks. No suits.
The West is going down, but not without one final autoerotic spasm: a shit storm the size of China forcing everyone into the foetal position, while the banks foreclose with an enema.
Me?
I’m going to hedge my bets on the 1993, season 4, episode 21 of The Simpsons, and buy a bottle of Dettol and wipe the whole slate clean!
If I could do a Weinstein or an Epstein and get away with it, I’d want to open my mouth like Greta Thunberg and renegotiate a ‘Rommel Death’ with a slice of pizza but all the shaming I’ll leave to the Vatican, royalty, past presidents and Hollywood’s boulevard of broken dreams, to remind me I am merely a conspiracy theorist with a vivid imagination, trying to live a pipe dream.
The Simpsons, Season 4, Episode 21 predicts Corona Virus
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
