Kuranda Dreaming

I drove the car

up the Kuranda range today, the trailor laden

with water-blasters, hoses and fittings.

I didn’t say much.

I dropped off the boys, and left them behind so I could wander about the market,

almost barefoot.

I blended in.

No makeup on, except I should have worn jandels or thongs instead,

and a larger dress to hide my burgeoning bust.

It was like a dream.

A technicoloured rainforest dreaming with chunky wrought iron seats,

a chair, dangly shells

and driftwood creations all twisted and twisting,

(hung from gold-plated fishing line).

A corroboree

of trinkets for our fair tourists. Opals and artist prints

priced at over $28

thousand dollars! Too rich for this hippie and the majority of the locals I imagine.

Still, I managed to find

my way to the old market,

find a churro place that served an eggs bene.

I stipulated

I didn’t want snottie egg whites to no avail.

I cried writing my poem, ‘the Mummers Dance’.

I secretly wished someone would magically notice my fragmented aura,

and offer my broken arse a foot rub

or a clearing energy

but it never came. Hippies are broker than me, mostly.

I changed my mind several times, ending up

back at the car and $21 dollars poorer.

I looked at my bloodshot eyes in the visor mirror,

wondering if I could get away without being seen.

I found my way back,

and sat in the car while they finished up for another two hours.

It wasn’t so bad,

chatting to my Karma in between clenched cheeks, kicking myself for a loo.

I stripped off

all my clothes when I got home and washed myself clean.

I’m still spread-eagled on the bed as we speak.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

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A Mummers Dance: Demeters Descent into Hades

What will become of her?

The three Fates furiously pull Demeters hair / dragging resistance, weaving fistfuls of slate grey strands into knots through gnarled fingers, as she struggles to break free.

Their mummers puppet, refusing to stay a decision, deciding that nothing can be done that hasn’t been done before.

Demeter in her craven mind, reluctantly resigns & begins her inevitable descent into death / succubus airs sliding down around those slippery steps like a mortal wound leaching from her soul.

What terrible unknown awaits?

Letting go, becoming a ghoulish nightmare / a back-lashing monologue of regret that terrifies her waking hours leaving nothing else to be desired.

Oh the fury!

How ill-equipped her gaze, stripped bare of stippled ends & brushed strokes / all hope is lost, perished in the long-black-abyss of eternal sleep.

She remembers Persephone, in her full bodied beauty & wails at the indignity of brittle bones & a peeling river of flesh falling from her ancient body, with every maudlin step.

Demeter stumbles. Trips. Her fall from grace crash landing at her own feet / anything is better than another mask, in the pantomime of lifes abomination.

She finally meets Persephones gaze / a ravaged maniacal stare, steady amongst the carnage of after-birth strewn all about her.

There is no escape.

It’s here her malicious appendages thrash / manipulating moans & pathetic misery, chaos finally falling on deaf ears.

If the end must come, make it swift!

/

A hard, fast jolt into the after-life, where the ambrosia of a ravaged soul is drained from existence / that rancid elixir of a life less loved, can finally be laid to rest

& lost for all eternity.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Hard-wired

It’s a hard-wired

ephemeral life

I lead.

Half of me yearning.

Half of me mourning.

Desire

for a quick death,

overcome by the

monotonous grind;

clandestine

lead – dragging

it’s heels, inching

forever forward

toward an unremarkable

destination.

Except for

the constant ache.

A low throb

moaning between my

legs,

rising up & into

my belly, disturbing

the dying butterflies

there.

Oh to be blindfolded!

Black out spread eagled,

all solidified reminders,

teased to know pleasure

for pleasures sake.

Played

like an object

of your imagination

& devoured

like a ripe peach!

I’m too old

for this shit,

she thinks, wanting

to just be loved.

No out-back

salt lakes to be found.

Slip streams

giving way

to an avalanche

in a classical black

& white silent movie.

It’s all too much

to take in,

the depravity

of age & of consent.

Too old, yet

too young to let

things slide.

Still, the tears come,

let loose

to chide & deride

my feminine critique –

that contemptible self

loathing that likes

to sink her

teeth in. Perhaps,

a concoction of

big pharma

is required

to keep her pliable?

Heart

broken,

wanting for nothing

but life’s

simple pleasures

to sweep her

off her feet,

lead her into

an ecstasy of wanton

abandonment.

Just one moment

to still the voices

& discard reality.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Nude

Fucking Curlews

The Curlews

are at it again,

raping

my subconscious

dreams,

reaching in to amplify

frustration, chorused

high

pitched

screams;

resonances, having their

wanton way

while I jerk

upright,

ears jolted into present

tense,

strangle-choke hold

on reality,

biting down on

tongues &

sticky beaks,

gang-banging an alarm

clock

choosing to snooze

or lose,

passion dying a savage

kind of pseudo

death,

figments of my

imagination; bent

over the

bed.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Mourning Molly

My Molly died today.

It was the venom that slowly ravaged her tiny frame. I nursed her. Four days of hugs, crooning she’s beautiful, so beautiful & that I love her; the emancipation of denial.

She never left my side, until the day she faded away, her expectant brown eyes slowly glazed over an opaque skin & it sunk in.

I dripped drops, to keep them moist – mine overflowing a continuous silent stream.

I held her floppy skin & bones close, before wrapping her in a purple Silk Air blanket, tucking her in for the last time.

I buried her in the morning sun, her favourite place to wake up, bask & warm.

Her memory lingering longer in my heart, her quirky quirks igniting my giggles – multiple kisses on her petite deer face, carrying her bundle under my arm to our next time & place.

Mourning my Molly in the lonely spaces in between.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Backshed Brazen

Behind the backshed, a worrying malevolence stays hidden in the shadows, glimpsed as the suns ray’s penetrate through the rhetoric, shining a light on all our ‘if only’s’, for a few brief moments.

/

If only Brazen had decided to kneel, bow down to those ‘Miriams’ withholding the ink from the well, & lick the carbon-dated dust accumulating on their threadbare shoes – lament temporarily lost at any cost, for the pen-ultimate facade.

A facade?

Those imposters she once knew, with their apoplectic gesticulations still choose to play their cards like liars & thieves, a charade more likely, based upon contrived lines of which they steal unto her buxom bosom.

Miriam broke her heart!

/

Her most respected iconoclast smashed the gavel into her brain / her overseer’s donning cats!

Both burned into her retina, like a world map on her marble.

/

Brazen sits in the corner under her dunce cap.

Mothballed poetic justice, relegated to a mere diary of questionable truths.

But I know!

I know what went on behind the backshed – you!

The Miriams’ of this world, have a lot to answer for.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Esoteric Alchemy

1.

I get a wee bit naughty when I’m high.

2.

Everything is beautiful.

Stars take on a new kind of beauty, forming celestial matrices I marvel at,

peak my existence.

Music tango’s a discourse; ecstasy, sorcery, mischief & mayhem,

my mind’s eye pulsing in time to rhythmic sex, swirling into everything & everyone around me,

sensing freedom.

Sparks untangle in my psyche & I am forgiven my sins. I traverse the esoteric alchemy of my mind, body & soul, caressing everything alight in you

& nothing else matters.

3.

I’m turning into a tradie.

Either that or a hippie, except I refuse to stop using soap even when my nasal passages fail to deliver the final blow.

I love wearing perfume, Tuscany per Donna in particular (except I’m running out), a floral oriental with sweet, woody undertones that matches my mood.

I’ve never understood the mentality of ‘Eau de Naturale’ when everyone else has to pay through the nose.

I burn Sandalwood for peace when I’m pottering around my home making her pretty.

I look like a tradie though these days, complete with hi-vis shirt, hobnailed boots and fluro socks. No make up.

I’ve let my long hair, grey naturally like a witch; an interlude between lives only donned for that special occasion once in a blue moon, when I speak easy.

Perhaps a Dharma Bum or a tradie with hippie/witch tendencies? It doesn’t really matter – I scrub up ok.

4.

‘Mirrors, mirrors closing round
By my will you now are bound.
Whatever ill you seek to do
Reflected back six times on you’,

says She, the Witch.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Transgression

Think Twice

I feel so protected, now.

South London ethics infused with shades of Grand Caneria – a past life unbeknownst to me.

He has a bark.

A hard, sharp stabbing bark that pierces through my psyche, knocking the wind from my bellow, to think twice.

I do think twice,

biting my tongue knowing silence is way more effective than responding – remembering that feeble psychological brain I once knew.

Damson & plum jam on toast, the chew in between sips of instant coffee biding my time,

thinking.

My tongue would rather be sliding up, down & around that everwidening smile, knowing I have things to say that can wait

for now.

I don’t blame you any more than you don’t want to hear, twice reminded that I’ve been here before (same same

but different).

I’m not gnawing at my nails in vain, rather quietly contemplating what it would mean if I fail.

If we fail, I’ll take all the good I can get & never look back.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Balkan Beauty

Phil by Fuzion Photography, Cairns 2017

“An admiration she wouldn’t normally entertain… if he were only a passing stranger”. JD Butler

Lady Jane is in love

with Ashcat.

His strong silhouette slipping in and out of her

periphery, and her

ebony arches rise.

Ashcat, oblivious to her wicked wanton imagination, carries on his distraction,

impervious.

She murders a bottle of Brut in anticipation, while he continues to sway his hips like Arrow – taking no prisoners.

Lady Jane marvels at his beauty.

An admiration she wouldn’t normally entertain (appearing crudely shallow), if he were only a passing stranger.

Warmth, is magnified by his dark Balkan eyes shrouded in long, thick lashes – he is her lover.

He wears Jesus sandals, long sunbleached salt and pepper hair, a ponytail and a sculptured beard adorns his shirtless chest, complimenting his oh-so-sexy charisma.

Oozing like Fat Boy Slim, Craig Charles or Ronnie Size and the like,

he dances in joyous rapture, while gratitude tango’s a discourse; Shakespearean words leading Lady Jane into

break-dancing lines and sonnets.

Drawn to the outline of his magnificent manhood – her eyes,

widen

remembering that first feast of flesh under a cascading moonlit pool. His six foot one

stature conjuring lust and erotic embolisms.

Ashcat is her lush and she is his Lady Jane.

Gin and tonic martini’s mix into multiples of mischievous smiles, Mt Uncle

botanicals tittilating both of their senses.

*

Lady Jane snaps back to reality and uncrosses her legs,

flashing glimpses of her petite ankles in the pantomime.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Blink

Do You See What I See?

Graffiti at Rex Burger Bar, Cairns, Australia

A city scape.

Lovers embrace.

The setting sun.

Water.

Reflections of a distant ship on the horizon.

Windows

and doors;

rooves, roads and

glistening alley ways,

streetlights, pavements, bricks and gutters

all seeming to drain.

An abyss.

Underground taverns, sewers and stormwater rivers.

Steps.

Tunnels and trams – passengers obscured behind frosty glass.

Rain and wind, dripping

drops and lines.

Hurried footsteps.

Coats,

and umbrellas.

*

Memories of Melbourne in winter.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Awkward

Famous Last Words

In the event of an imminent thermonuclear war, all we can do is watch,

& wait.

We wait for the sun to rise in the East – Putin, putting on the ritz, while the West opens their vintage wardrobe & rummages through threadbare tassles, choking on clouds of faux fur.

We, watch & wait

witnessing White Helmets filming fake news, staging fake attacks, doing God’s dirty work not dissimilar to Custer’s last stand.

Still, we watch

& wait,

while royalty fight over the spoils; children picking bones apart, the rise of Zion (Judas) & the damnation of Mother Mary

respectfully, although they both feed off one another like zombies in a blood bath.

Watching & waiting,

for the irony of it all to become clear. The penultimate finale – being surrounded by the proverbial white light.

Fucking bastards!

The last sun ever to set in the West, leaving everything we knew behind.

A spectacular sunset, followed closely by a long, dark, cold, post apocalyptic nightmare.

*

I for one, watch

scanning the horizon willing it to rain,

waiting

for a new dawn.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Power

Disrupt

Maximòn

Photographer: Scott Wilcox, Fuzion Photography, 2017

“…fine tuning the in-between of harmony; hearts, earth & sky” JD Butler

Maximòn,

the epitome of balance:

patience & frustration,

softly spoken & vehement.

Ritual billowing, vaping

new life

into old lungs,

filtering

pure tobacco into undulating balls of steam.

His stage is an altar.

We dance, cleansing much more than our spirit,

fine tuning

the in-between

of harmony; hearts,

earth & sky.

Our effigy, enlightening the soul & keeping her secrets,

venerable in his wisdom.

Our Columbian overlord garnishes

the Mayan temple our grandfather’s bestowed.

Protective.

Upcycling shadows, illuminating the light –

breathing new life.

He is the embodiment of patronage & the people,

regenerating

health, crops, marriage, business, revenge & death.

Holding

our community together.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Maximòn

Glimmer

Cobalt Blue Wings

The Daintree again,

eventually.

One more visit to Port Douglas & everything was shut!

For once, I didn’t feel

anything.

/

I never know if I’m going to see a cassowary,

or watch a ulysses flashing

cobalt blue wings

in the wood; my attention, caught off guard,

landing

on a branch or leaf – just out of

reach.

I hope for glimpses of colour

to blur my vision, invite me to follow that willow

like a wisp.

/

Steep curves in the road

climb &

descend &

slow down

for those shuddering bars strategically placed

becoming progressively more gnarly, closer

to paradise.

/

Lost.

Remembering chivalry – that warm endearing charm & seductive attention

that would set my seat aside, leaving me

to explore every crevice & fold.

For once, I didn’t feel

a thing.

/

Soldier crabs scurry into spherical holes dug deep into the sand, sidestepping that fine line; waves,

washing in & out

hiding those croc’s you know are just under the surface.

I dont bother scanning the rainforest for anything else

that moves.

I didn’t feel you there.

/

Braver than most – or foolish. I’m yet to decide.

I don’t remember butterflies.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Froth

Sylvia Prefers Madness over Insanity

It’s going to hurt digging in, under my skin.

\

Trust. Pain.

Death before dishonour – the Cold War sits in Sylvia’s parlour,

pretending patience is a virtue. We all watch,

a slow burn, already warming the tips

of her lasciviously long

fingers,

licking at her lips.

/

She would rather shake you all off, than let loose another tirade,

another stone, another reason to beg

forgiveness.

Sabotage sinking to a new low.

\

Silvia’s far too unreasonable, although

she prefers irrational; madness defining her in the end. Hands

& feet securely strapped,

her mouth,

stuffed shut with gauze & gaffer tape.

No sign of life – metal bars

& padded cells

resembling reason.

/

Floral oriental lilies.

\

Shes always known how to let go.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Karma, Brainiac & Putin’s Balls of Steel

“Karma…she doesn’t rely on intel, cointel, black or psy ops of any kind” JD Butler

1.

Relationships,

are not all they’re cracked up to be.

They are like sabotaged roses; severed from stems,

rolling like heads,

to feel like

Oh!

/

I don’t know.

2.

Denial,

is like sleep walking, except star gazing in day dreams,

avoiding

a fourth kind encounter, shining a light beam on all our useless airs & graces.

Waking hours are left,

wanting.

3.

Karma’s, not any dirtier than her alter ego would suggest either.

At least she let’s you in,

ties you up,

then fucks you up the arse before she withdraws.

/

In her world, she doesn’t care.

She doesn’t rely on intel, cointel, black or psy ops of any kind,

in order to see past you & into the future.

To her, we are all space invaders that have the potential to devour.

4.

Russia, may be all over the West but Brainiac’s got the universe covered.

He sucks & fucks his way though world’s several times over – therefore, we won’t have a shit show in hell, by the time he gets here.

Putin’s already won his war anyway (the West is going down).

By the time you realise WTF just happened, that warm thermonuclear feeling you have between your legs –

will be soiling more than just your knickers.

5.

There is no infinity & beyond when relationships are run on denial.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Betrayed

Karma Keto

One camel toe please,

two new boobs,

one new neck,

one flat stomach

& two stick arms.

The goal has been exceeded, in Thailand.

/

Swell hell, can go to hell!

Karma tells me she’s having Keto tonight.

Next stop, Brazil.

One fat transfer please,

two stick legs

& a Partridge in a pear tree.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Micro

Bangkok Deconstructed

Bangkok deconstructed:

fractured concrete buildings, ripped apart as I watch from my Somerset window.

Steel, jutting haphazard in tangled knots; a once perfectly acceptable infrastructure,

now crumbling blocks fall into piles of useless rubble, while machinery scrapes the lot into a perfect square level playing field.

Ready for the next wave of antagonists selling prosperity,

pins & pegs.

/

Nips & tucks,

scalpel’s cutting across corners, aligning smooth curves with invisible sutures.

Skin, falling into plastic bags; trophies with twistie ties, all captured by Five Eyes.

Fat globules disperse & intermingle among the blood & yellowing toxic waste,

stretch marks & saggy skin. Torture under white lights (hung, drawn & quartered), like medieval madness.

Discarded pieces of meat/flesh going up in smoke, incinerated into giant plumes.

*

Rancid ashes & suffocating dust resuscitating enlightenment

into a new age.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Invisible

Backshed Bullshit Press

“We can’t approve every poet, in case it reflects badly” JD Butler

‘It’s only a name and doesn’t really mean anything’

But it seems as though it matters at the end of the day.

Standards must be kept after all.

It’s only for skilled/educated, literate poets.

We can’t approve every poet, in case it reflects badly.

We must make ourselves look good.

Weed out the riff raff as it were.

Make a name for ourselves.

Only the chosen few will be supported.

Friends and family.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Fact

Freaky Fish & the Stench of Rotting Meat

I could smell it a mile away. The stench. It reeked. A purple suit jacket couldn’t distract my nasal passages, any more than the blue arse flies circling around my eggs bene and an old English breakfast. A seedy but not too bad cafe on Sandringham Road.

My submission was a waste of time and money in the end. His slobbering tongue may as well have slid around the inside of my mouth, probing for fishy morsels when he should have been licking the egg yolk, about to dribble from the corner of his. But there will be no saving the 1970’s retro tie from yet another polka dot stain.
I’m sure he could smell it too. My hot, pulsating wet pussy, soiling my knickers over the prospect of having my culinary words eaten out of context. It stinks. There is nothing quite like the smell of rotting meat to make a woman feel heavenly – retch! It cracks me up every time I regurgitate.
/
It was all business and no pleasure. A typical overcast Auckland day in the middle of winter, but it still didn’t stop him adjusting his oversized proportion trying it on for size. That would be a clichè, if he were unable to stop drooling over my salmon.
The damage is done. A lingering malaise assuming everyone thinks I suck. All it took was a piece of meat and all the fingering fucked me over. No conspiracy theory this time, just a stench and salmonella in my mouth.
/
Nazis were a problem.

I should have taken them all out.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Messy

Honesty Died with Bukowski

“Brown nosing is considered commentary, while deceit still lingers in gaslit ovens” JD Butler

People could learn to say what they mean, & mean what they say but

brown nosing is considered commentary, while deceit still lingers in gaslit ovens; no professionalism, integrity or due process. 

Fraudulent essentially – powerful people full of egotistical self righteous bigotry, who really don’t give a fuck! Zealots who would suck off anything & lick the rim, just to play the press.

I’ve retired, & that doesnt give anyone the license to try to get their end away by throwing a ‘seemingly solid’ literary curve ball at me, that’s totally full of shit!

Honesty died with Bukowski & I wish I lived in America, because I know exactly where to buy a cheap gun

without any background checks.

© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Dim