Welcome To My World

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.

Take me to Church – Hozier

© Copyright 2021, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Limbo Suffragette

Limbo

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

Heavy Heart

Eros & Psyche

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

Aphrodite

Zeus

Skin & Bitch Bone

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.

Hozier- Take Me To Church

© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Sinking In

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

What the Water Gave Us

© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

The Venus Flytrap of Love

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.

© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Whore

Clock app, I chime well.

The sheets are slithery crevices

Satin-lined, with serpent tongue poised to strike,

It is a meeting of the soul,

A shaft of light

Through cathedrals of stained glass.

Where you are safe,

Where there are no family heirlooms,

No dinner on the table, no lies.

Suave virile hips, the smirk of men

Glaze at her smoke

And I, in my honeyed plume,

Milk a gallon of amphibian seed.

To release

The roar of angst I swallow toads ~

Meat and three vege, a staple,

The ‘Elixir of Life’.

My mouth gags,

The mouth of Mary

When my accelerator touches the pan.

The giggle of my

Plastic features, my way of arching

Johns to rigors of trapeze

Lays on the charm, a gasp.

And it goes on and on, and on.

I shall remain a nymph. Old muscles

Strain like a bough and I

Blush like Betty Boop

Satisfied,

All the sighs of winter, fall

Offering up last seasons rosella

Tea to read.

© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Appropriated from Sylvia Plath’s ‘Gigolo’, 29 January 1963, Collected Poems, 1981

Outlander

Jamie Fraser.

The highlander of my wet dreams &

the epitome of Scottish manhood – the rise

of the Jacobite & the battle of Colloden,

ending it all.

/

That fiery red head fuels my desire, transporting me to Lallybroch.

I am the Lady Broch Tuarach arching her thawed back,

purring like a cat; her cream licked to perfection.

Jealous.

Her secret coveted, breathing pure unadulterated sex.

I stretch back and close my eyes, snatch

images of her glory box at the foot of my bed

replaying soundbytes,

over

and over,

running my fingers through locks,

strumming a frantic tune,

finding their way through crevices & folds; my highland landscape.

Such pleasure!

Tartan wool & kilt,

an 18th century romp & a battle for the heart.

/

But as always, English tyranny is never far from the scene.

Too many #Metoo moments and brutality stops everything in its tracks.

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

Baby, I Love Your Way

I love you.

I love that you’re mine.

I love the way you light up a room with your presence and my heart.

I love the way you joyously cook for me and our friends; laughter combusting into spontaneous abundance.

I love the way you laugh and giggle and play the fool, running around the room screaming like a freaking fruit, with Snoop.

I love that you do your best with everything and everyone, everytime.

I love that your heart only wants to do good and focus on the future.

I love how you think positively about all of our obstacles and we work together to solve them.

I love your resilience and strength of character, even when times get tough – you find a way.

I love the way your face lights up when you plan a party, design a flyer and work the promo.

I love the way you DJ – making me and everybody dance, with huge smiles on our dials.

I love to see you in your costumes and watch you come alive.

I love seeing the happiness on your face when you achieve the almost impossible, frequently.

I love watching your facial expressions and that passionate rocking and rolling you do on your chair, punching your hands in the air, to your favourite songs.

I love the way you make me feel, holding my hand and casually putting your arm around me, no matter where we are.

I love how you give me a wake-me-up-call most mornings, and I feel your desire pressing against me.

I love the way you slip, and fall between my legs with that naughty, cheeky giggle.

I love the way you whisper in my ear and tell me I’m sexy and beautiful and how much you want me.

I love it when you kiss me for no reason.

I love your sexy swagger and smouldering eyes.

I love the way you make me Chai in the mornings, and/or a cigarette and we slowly wake up together.

I love watching you shine.

*

On any given day, you give yourself to me in all your authenticity, with love.

You are the most awesome, amazing, talented, sexy, loveable man I have ever had the pleasure to meet and call mine.

I dont know how long I’ve got you for, but the romantic in me hope’s you put a hippie ring on it and we mooch on into the future, forever.

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

Kerouac’s Tongue Lashing

Jack behaves like a cunt just like any other man, when he’s finally had enough of his own reflection and pulls himself away from the pool.

He can’t help it.

When he’s not obsessed, he’s hardwired – his testosterone crossing over somewhere between being John Malkovich and Jack Nicholson.

Blame and excuses.

Reasons why, justifying those cutting, whining remarks (when he’s really only pissed with himself). Why’d you fucking put me down?

He’s a cunt just like all men.

Patriarchal conditioning bringing all their cuntiness to the surface when things dont go according to plan.

One minute we’re a Goddess, the next a whore.

Riddled in perpetual conflict (and guilt), but really they are all their fathers sons.

If I were a man, I would have punched him in the jaw.

Apparently its ok to punch cunts when they deserve it.

*

I’d rather you punished me with a tongue lashing any day!

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

I Choose to Run

“I think we’ve been put through the emotional wringer and there are only fraying threads left of the tapestry we once sewed together” JD Butler

Just like me to need a pacifier when the going gets tough but

it’s not all about me.

You’ve changed – maybe we’ve both changed, but not for the better. You used to care if I cried but

not any more.

I guess you’re strung out, over-worked, under-paid, under-sexed and looking for a way out in your Red Dead Redemption II,

outback adventure.

Maybe you also feel trapped? What if I left, left the house for you to rent? I can go anywhere to live

and start again.

Sydney, Melbourne, Perth perhaps. 6 months here, 6 months there (in New Zealand). Reinventing myself

is what I’m good at.

Jezabel is never too far away for me to find a way to survive. She never leaves me or changes. I can count on her

to do the right thing.

I’ll miss you. Everything about you. How wonderfully beautiful you are with your deep dark brown eyes. You are talented, loving and rich beyond anything resembling money.

I consider

myself blessed.

It’s time I moved on. I’ve reached a point where I don’t think we can offer each other the best part of ourselves any more. I think I hold you back from your true potential.

I think you resent not seeing your friends as often as you would like – cultivate those

friendships and opportunities.

I think you would feel better with money in your own pocket. I want to see you happier, less frustrated,

less aloof and less distracted.

When I met you, you were larger than life, full of happiness, generosity, love. You were loyal to me.

I think we’ve been put through the emotional wringer and there are only fraying threads left of the tapestry

we once sewed together.

I’m distressed. I’m trying to preserve the last of my sanity in order, to survive.

I’m concerned. I want to give you as much as I can for you to feel secure. You’ve worked hard and

I have no intention of ruining you.

I’m not like my ex because I love you – he never did.

I don’t want to see you cry, or curl up and die inside,

but I still choose

to run again this time.

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

Remembrance

They were so young and

no one really knew them

before they

fell.

Every now and again

bones of remains

find their way to the surface

in some raggedy

field in France

or Turkey.

They DNA test,

pick through leftovers

hiding in a ribcage –

dog tags

and old photographs,

still found in remarkable

condition.

They contact any last

known relatives,

mark a grave and

plant flowers to

remember a time that

refuses to

die.

*

It was all just government

sanctioned genocide,

on both sides.

Lest We Forget.

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

Tag Team

Photo by JD Butler

1.

Your love for me has already gone

& you don’t even know it.

I lie awake, tensing & untensing, reminding myself to breathe.

Numb.

I don’t remember what it feels like to be loved, lying next to you, rubbing your shoulders, listening to your faux sleep or nightmarish fits & starts.

I only ask you dont take my friends with you.

What little I have left that teeters on that ledge where I start again & you leave off.

Do you know what colour my eyes are? Know their depths & greys?

Do you know what keeps you close & yet so far away?

I don’t understand.

You give me so little to hold on to, I feel invisable but you seem to think the world owes you a favour & you’re mine.

I cease to exist.

I refuse to live.

I’ll take the scraps like a good little bitch – watch & wait for the next tasty morsel to fall onto the floor.

If this is what you need, I have no choice but to accept.

Throw me a bone every once in a while, when you remember not to forget.

2.

I’m being selfish.

You love me with all your heart. You’re working your skinny white arse off for me, for us & I’ve got you all wrong.

You can see into the future that promises money, hotel rooms, boats, fine wine & women but didn’t you already piss that up against the wall?

I’m jaded.

Am I really what you want, tucked away in the back of suburbia, barefoot, looking like a dyke in my short-shorts & singlet?

Age wearing me down where I just want peace.

I dont want to dance or drink or muck around with you knowing there’s nothing in it for me.

Oh but there is?

Did it only just dawn on you that what’s mine is mine & you either choose to accept this mission or it will self destruct in 5, 4, 3…

What have you got to worry about anyway? You can make money, friends, music anywhere.

Well I’m 50, a woman, unemployed, questionably sane & dubiously employable & up to my eyeballs in debt.

My options are limited & guess what – you’re it!

You don’t believe in marriage & I concur. You believe in hard work in love but no cigar?

Why do it all at all if you get nothing out of it?

Why are you here complaining?

What the fuck do you want from me, if this is not a game?

3.

I’m not sure I know exactly what I’m in for.
© 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

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

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

Guess What

Live your life wishing well, for that is the only thing that will define you”, JD Butler

I know you loved me, because you still watch me, but guess what? I loved you too & where are we now?

I’m happy. I don’t know what you are but I feel you. Even now your eyes look me up & down from afar.

Such is life. You lost your shit & treated me like shit but guess what? This is the last thing you will ever read about you.

My life is mine & you can never take that from me, unless you follow through with your threats to torture, rape & murder.

That’s all you hold on to. Hate. It defines you in your moans, wingeing about this & that, who has done you wrong deserving payback.

Live your life wishing well, for that is the only thing that will define you. You owe it to your girls.

You have your head screwed in a vice.

© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Anything but the Girl

‘For her I shine’ by Daniel McLeod Photography

He came over today, the sexy fucker! It would have been nanoseconds if I had my way; his rooster waking me up at some ungodly hour, unlike the one next door that miraculously disappeared overnight 

He’s surrounded by chicks with dicks for the most part & I love playing the diva swanning about in my skanky pants, proudly wearing my Madge of Honour

It’s only when I’m feeling omnipotent I become envious, allowing my Goddess to flaunt her divine masculinity strapped to her inner thighs, milking you for whatever it’s worth in my dreams

I think it’s only fair you get what you deserve, my milkshakes had all the boys in the yard, now she wants savoury pineapple smoothies sliding down around her knees, spitting seeds

So much for demure! I want lust & primal screams awakening my thwarted inner peace, transcendental om’s on my lips & you lost in oblivion

I’m a saucy bitch, quick witted enough to slap you down with a wildwoman grin, your eyes never waivering, once I bring you to life looking up from under lashes

You’re a sexy fucker & I love you more for being tied up in knots I need & stretch with ease, my magic hands working with pleasure

My demons are in awe of your presence; silenced except for my desire, stirring up more than delayed gratification

I want you to fuck me up more than anything! bring her down to your level, where I am anything but afraid & anything but the girl

© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Partner

Copper Carries a Gun

He wants to be a copper, so he can carry a gun

In public where everyone can see, the man

He wants to be a copper, so he can shoot people

Pass the buck onto a badge

He wants to join the boys club, on the right side of the fence

He wants to be a copper, so he can bludgeon you all to death

/

With a smile on his face, masking his distaste 

Joking in the watchhouse, hiding his disgrace

© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Gold Coast Whistleblower

Police Body Cameras Rarely Used

Rogue Cops

Dormant