Judas tosses my skin dough
kneading
Spread too thin
Wood fire burnt, ends
Encrusted mounds & blisters
Slough
fall
Tears another hole &
I become a meal;
A tv dinner deal.
At the last supper, Mary
Sings a hymn &
All the Angel’s
rejoice!
My veil lifted drifts
Chewed fingertips boxed in
Swallowed whole, followed by
An after-dinner mint & toothpick.
But what I really need is a good
stretch.
© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
My heart is breaking today. I want to die. I am all alone in this world, unloved and forgotten. I am breaking down in the moment surrounded by strangers and strange smells that have come barraging into my sacred space and pegged me into a corner. I don’t have the will to live anymore. I look for ways to end my life that doesn’t require umpteen steps to get there. I wish to just slip away in my sleep, in silence, in peace. There are spies everywhere. Pseudo friendships of users and manipulaters. Pretenders. I want to simply vanish, disappear without a trace knowing no one would ever call to find me and it will be as-if I never was. If I am a Goddess, it doesn’t add up. There is something inside me that fails to love or be loved. I must have been an angel once, but the universe has me outcast. I pray for my quick death but my whole life has been a slow grief stricken process of dying. I want it all to end. I visualise my soul manifesting in mist; graceful swirls arising from my lifeless body. Ascension taking me back home to timeless euphoria and relief. All I’ve ever wanted was to love and be loved but I am not worthy. None of us are. If life is a gift, I have been an ungrateful bitch.
But we all have down days. Poetry helps me to purge and heal.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I feel like I’m on the last mile home. Everyone is gone. Although most people are just lost trying to survive.
I think about people, wonder how they are but I don’t really believe they care much. ‘Trust no one’, is being bandied about like Al Capone’s mandate in the Godfather but I’d rather have him on side than deal with the average Joe Blow shitcunt who’s self absorbed selfishness means it’s only a matter of time before they want something.
Everyone is just trying to make it through another night, live another day and create a semblance of paradise in their own backyard before they flip the bird for the last time.
I’m really struggling to make my ends meet. I can see no end and I’m getting older by the year. I find myself dreaming of the last mile home; the last death row to freedom.
Last Mile Home by Kings of Leon
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
It was like meeting a stranger.
That uncomfortable feeling of awkward recognition and detachment — that made me want to run least I fall apart, reveal my core which you saw, reflected back at you between glimpses.
That unspoken knowing.
I felt the push of energy and the pull of old habits back into regression, back into the familiar comfort zone of old where nothing changes and we both die a little bit more inside and destiny forgets to reset.
I’m wondering if we’re humble enough to surrender, strong enough to become vulnerable long enough to push through the sparks, ignite the fire and transform pain into passion so we can both decide to rise.
We dance as if we’re going nowhere but in reality, we are already somewhere. Somewhere untapped, viscerally raw and undeniably on the edge of something far greater than either of us anticipated of love.
I want us to push through.
We are free falling to unknown depths and still creating marble pillars from blind faith alone, to eck out an existence that illuminates the veils so we can both find freedom in enlightenment.
All we need to do is walk through the door and let go of the past once and for all and finally fall completely and utterly in love where nothing else matters, except us.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I am
The High Priestess
Lifting the Second Veil
I am grieving
That I am
Invisible
That I am
Denied
Used & abused
Wounded
That I am
Powerful
That I am
Spiritual
Magnetic
Eternal
That I am
Goddess
That I am
The Medicine Woman
The Artisan &
The Determinatress
I am healing
My Akashic DNA
I Am
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
My thoughts are a jumbled mess of confusion (yours, his, hers & mine) scrying for something to hold onto long enough to make sense of the anchors and foundations we’ve both forged from pain, which now threaten to cave in. There is nothing I can do but watch. You are the man. My dreams and cracked beams are giving way to violence — detachment and oblivion. Nothing will be left but a fully loaded house of teetering cards.
All I feel is loss.
The aftermath will have me face to face with Charon. He sits upon my chest now, opening up my third eye bidding me to say goodbye one last time. My soul declines, offering suffering in silence, compassion finding release in a steady stream and I overflow. My ears make wells to muffle his bargain but I belong to no one, not even him. I am a lost cause.
If I accept, demons could still tear me apart, dismember my appendages piece by bloody piece before sewing me back together skew-whiff, over and over again until I am utterly insane. Therein lies the abyss. The place that makes my life a living hell and all my heart aches for, is to love and be loved.
But all I feel is sadness.
Abandonment caves in my ribcage too. It digs in like a tick underneath my lungs and sucks every last drop of fluid left from my life. I am wrung out and strung out, so I waste no time in knocking myself out just to get lost — I wander in the ether to find her again and bring her back home but there is always a catch.
Twenty two foregone conclusions reek of tyranny. You can’t save me! I was lost before you found me and I don’t belong to you or them or here or anywhere and it will always be like this! I don’t want to believe in angels! I don’t want to believe in demons! I don’t want to live in this place!
There is another outburst of pain.
I seek comfort in my magic, my wand set to low creates slow circles that mimick your gentle touch. I feel pleasure for the first time since I last felt your gaze reach in to pull me out and into your Temple. You try to worship my foreign body, send ripples ricocheting between our vibrations but we have failed to find synchrony. In my delirium, I think I must have died.
All I feel now is grief.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
She longs to be held,
my Mary Magdalene, in a lovers embrace.
Spooned & cocooned
Jesus, giving his life
for her.
His arms, extend
holding on giving in
sinking further; a fusion
of flesh & bone,
a comfort hold & home.
I know he too saw
the black curtain fall
& from that moment
they were lost. Lost
& found.
Karma settles scores
resets the All, divine demands
an eternal sacrifice
& Mary yearns for desire
to make it all worthwhile.
A light.
Recognition, foretells
omens coming in three’s,
a wiccan rede; magic, morality
& the afterlife,
a promise from Eden.
She wails. Mary
kisses the soul of destiny,
trusting something bigger
than her parts & let’s go
giving in to fates fury.
A slow grind
losing lust’s sake
to find love & the third eye
delves to depths of compassion
just to be touched.
I long to find her
bring her back whole
to let you in & feel
time expand & contract
as-if we were one.
Despair leaves her wanting.
Holy moments
of magic come & go
Mary holds on, buries herself
in Jesus’ warm arms & hides.
Two lovers lament
looking for something
& leave with nothing; numbness
held in a vice-like grip.
Begone!
Time, will ignite
the cosmic fire
that drew them together. Love,
is bigger than what they once
knew of love.
If I surrender, we can
let go — trust
universal intelligence &
rebuild the architecture of life
in our own image.
Mother Mary is finding her way
& it is already written in the stars.
Jesus IS the way, the truth
& the light.
Ours is creation.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
Demeter feels deep shame.
That niggling voice belies demons who whisper their disapproval. I don’t want them to hate her. It’s easier to hide away until she can return, find compassion for their mistrust.
She is too big.
The things she pontificates under duress, scare me. It is best that I learn to trust Hermes – to ask for something with a reason instead of stealing something without one.
Mourning.
Loss, tears open a hole — splits a scar further apart; destroying a perfectly sealed crust. Fragments of flaky skin scatter to the wind, shed a diatribe of unforgiving.
She moves in and out of the ether.
Flying through space and time searching for another wormhole, another passage to take her to Persephone, that damned alter-ego who dwells in the deep recesses of purgatory. Home is where her heart aches to return.
Demeter negotiates another extrapolation.
Manifesting a spiral vortex, she hones her parts and I wait for the impact to knock me off my feet — wake me up with a jolt of epiphany where I love the magnificence of my creation.
She does not belong to Hades.
Demeter is radiant. All the virtues I try to bestow; a culmination of strength and vitality and love to honour – my integrity in spades.
I am omnipresent.
Her mouth is shut preferring solace over a wailing lament that conjures a maelstrom of death and dying. I could do well to endure no more, wrath has held me bound.
Tonight Demeter ascends.
I return to myself and you are free to wander in search of true love and find your Artemisia, a perfect match for your Nemesis.
No Light, No Light by Florence and the Machine
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
My ether box
graunching & grinding through stargates
shudders, misfiring synapses
lurch from push to pull
ascending
descending
traversing my self worth,
mitigating losses
tempering gains.
I am giving in,
my self esteem proving much harder
to love and set free.
I’m trying to make peace my lover.
Finding my path with you
is unconventional at best
excruciating at worst,
leaving behind
socially acceptable hopes & dreams
settling in to formalities — contracts
designed to pave the way; a gold lining
to my pewter paradise
on that long road to happiness.
I stare into Aphrodite through my looking glass
& blow her a kiss goodbye.
Skeleton’s eventually decay
but demons still want to purge pain,
set me up to fail
tempt Narcissus to stray,
to step away from his reflection
& risk a coward’s death.
I ask the Goddess for forgiveness
trust my fate & fury
& instinct to guide me.
Psyche would lead me astray
to plummet over the edge
of reason — but Aphrodite will broker a deal.
Start over. My fossil fuelled forge
will always find a way forward,
transform blue light beams
into fire, illuminate those pitchforks
& burning crosses hiding in my ether;
shadows that threaten
to cast spells & incinerate whole galaxies,
merely pseudo reflections
of my reality. I choose you
& take no prisoners at the same time,
for I choose wisely.
There is no burden I cannot bear
when it comes to you,
how you see yourself is a reflection.
We hold our head & hearts
in their hands; their hands
create a destiny for us both.
We are intertwined & enlightened —
a gift from God.
Our souls recognise, accept & understand
there is only now, the past is gone. The future is
whatever we divine.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
You’ve been breaking me.
Killing me softly like that song, trying not to harm me, trying not to lie — letting me fall to see if I come back stronger. I know what you’re doing; giving me facts to face my fears
so you don’t have to wear a mask.
Sinking me down further, bit by bite.
You watch me wrestle with Psyche, see the squalls before they arrive, the rogue waves looming on the horizon and try to navigate the shit storm that is my life or so I imagine her lot,
Sometimes.
Forecast’s based upon trust, an old school remedy tried and tested over centuries of trial and error, almost on the doorstep of my abandonment. I have to want to choose my life over my life, play with fire or die in vain — seek some sort of comfort hold that pulls me close (safe), that doesn’t strangle me in my sleep.
Demeters demise.
Comes as no surprise then. Her return from the underworld fraught with danger, shed the All, her only hope of salvation and ascension coming to light; Zeus rumbling his desires expects nothing less than a fathers love in return.
I think I am forsaken.
You think I am like Poppy, offer me a chance to be apart of a real family, show me another way to heal, to find warmth and trust that I am genuinely loved where I can thrive, in time. Something I have too much of and not enough to squander.
I want to give it all away.
My job, my friend, my life in exchange for something worth fighting for, yet I am bereft, devoid and damaged beyond repair and you cannot reach me. I need more time to get over you.
Another, will begin another end
to wear me down to char. Somehow my destiny taunts me, forces me to watch and become nothing but a burdon I still have to carry when I can no longer fight and I don’t have what it takes to push through, for you.
Trust no one.
Bravery has always been a strong fulcrum point, an internal compass that leaps toward faith, a little too close for comfort in the end. My judgement will come as swiftly as Hera came forward to claim what was rightfully hers, tearing out her own heart for the sake of her enemies!
You don’t want me.
My demons are telling me I have to die a bit more in order to live but it still hurts to say goodbye. Either way, I am lost right now and there’s nothing anyone can do. You’re all in for a hell ride while I deconstruct and I make no guarantees that I will survive intact this time.
Evolution.
My head is trying to cling to straws while my heart is breaking and I have no where left to go, except home. The secret to survival is balancing hope and despair. I am doing my best and I am so tired.
Guflydktskyl vg j jkhlhc. Khhc khckhc. Uclhfflh. Yxjrekh. Kyeekgxkyggl. It all makes no sense to me. Just empty words in hollow spaces
All This & Heaven Too – Florence and the Machine
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
My heart aches.
I feel your absence &
withdrawal; a choke hold on my creative impulses.
Punishment for some unforgivable crime?
Another cycle of illusion.
Another full moon delusion.
I wait.
Patience, Aphrodite’s one remaining virtue
bites her tongue.
Still, her voice will not be silent.
Another cycle of illusion.
Another full moon delusion.
She holds you even now
but where are you taking her?
I hang by a silver thread, a hangman’s noose
on a whim & a prayer.
Another cycle of illusion.
Another full moon delusion.
Aphrodite is on her knees!
Still, I remain invisible.
All the excuses in the world are unworthy
of the Emperess’ devotion.
Another cycle of illusion.
Another full moon delusion.
They all remain at arms length.
Close enough to touch
yet too far away to miss; a bouquet of wildflower’s &
the greener grass of home.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I very rarely receive poems from other people, lovers or friends. This one warms my heart ❤️
It’s taking a while to penetrate.
Belief,
depth
conviction
lived realities
a survivor’s strength and courage,
in the face of adversity, love and loss.
The dedication
commitment,
the hard work you put in for others,
from your self
for love.
All those beautiful, wonderful, loving words you woo
of depth and beauty,
a kind heart,
care and thought,
steadfastness and
bravery
grinding.
It’s taking a while to penetrate
into your world of darkness
into your world of light
to see if truth comes anywhere close
to what we need or desire.
Most days, delays are lost
important little things
two minutes too late.
We are filled with flaws – holes.
Belief waxes and wanes,
cycles of movement entice
Psyche and the Emperess to dance;
the jurisprudence of my mind
staying grounded.
Eros and Midas hone their power
and fortitude swings the pendulum,
slows down time —
creates a rhthym
from which you will rise.
It’s taking a while to penetrate
thick skin membraned
dura mater cores; my heart,
lining a sweaty forehead
forced to furrow,
contemplating
Life.
Living in moments
loving every minute,
letting you in
under my skin — layers,
melting my ice.
Chronos knows what the past leaves behind; betrayal,
the dying dreams of
Aeon’s infinite chaos.
Is it worth the gamble?
It’s taking a while to penetrate
the concept of love,
but witnessing miracles
every single day since
you graced my presence.
From that very first night,
I knew there was something
omnipresent between us
and I’m learning to trust.
© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
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, psychic 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)
Because 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
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