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

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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 from 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 dont 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

To Be Confirmed

Maybe

I’ve met someone wonderfully new

Maybe

Maybe

He’s into me & nothing like you

Maybe

Maybe

He means what he says & says what he means

Maybe 

Maybe

He’s not full of shit or lying through his teeth

Maybe

Maybe

He genuinely cares & thoughtfully thinks

Maybe

Maybe

He’s been hurt, one too many times blue

Maybe

Maybe

I’ve met someone wonderfully new

Maybe

Maybe 

I’ve met someone nothing like you

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

Harmonize

Man, Martyr & Misogynist

One wooden desk

One black leather chair

One black office chair (all purchased from Marilyn)

One black laptop case (gift from Michelle) 

One Brown square lamp table; Madang

One matching coffee table; Madang (both purchased from A-mart)

One pair of jumper leads

One complete set of original Tin Tin comics (Yes, ORIGINAL)

One colour drawing of Pink 

One missing portrait (of my children)

One piece of art

One damaged hammock

One damaged gate

One damaged printer

One ruined painting

Numerous CD’s and DVD’s

/

Why?

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

Disastrous

My Dublin Leprechaun

Photos by me, Jodine Derena Butler, 2017

I landed in old Dublin town not far from Temple Bar

I found me seat beside the barman, drinking apple cider

My leprechaun he raised his eyebrows, looked at me and sang a smile

He strummed his guitar, tapped his feet and I was left my heart on fire

For I had lost my Ireland, Dublin calling me back home

I landed in old Dublin town not far from Temple bar

I found my seat beside the barman, drinking apple cider

A pint or three? he said to me, I laughed and clapped and danced a jig

He sang to me in Gaelic land and I held my Johnny’s strumming hand

And so it was, the cider flowed, and we were left beside us

I landed in old Dublin town not far from Temple Bar

I found my seat beside the barman, drinking apple cider

We made our way to Clontarf castle, almost tripping over feet

Now it could be said, of what he did, that roseyed my cold cheeks in bed…

My Dublin Leprechaun beside me, crying in his arms he held me

He found me in old Dublin town, not far from Temple Bar

On my seat beside the barman, drinking apple cider

My Dublin leprechaun he found me, and to this day he will remind me

I came home that Temple Bar, he sang to me and stole my heart…

The Temple Bar Pub

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

Brassy

Version 2
I crossed the sea by winged plane

I landed in old Dublin town

I found my way to Temple Bar

Wth ruined roads a shambles
My Leprechaun was singing pretty
He sung to me of Dublin city

Fair lad and lass, love and loss

I felt my heart was heavy
I landed in old Dublin town

I found my way to Temple Bar

My ancestry lost long ago

Stories told me not remembered
My irish Leprechaun he told me

Some fair things are best forgotten

So I danced a jig to my long lost relies

And raised my glass of cider
 I found myself in dublin city no Guinness factory

I raised my glass in Temple Bar

My Irish Leprechaun reminds me

Down at Temple Bar

I found myself in dublin town

Down at Temple Bar

My Leprechaun was a playin

I danced a jig for my long lost relies

I raised my glass of cider

And that was me, you see

I found myself in dublin city

Temple bar a clappin
One two three four times

I danced a jig for my long lost relies 

Raised a jug to cider happy

Oh to be in Irish land

My irish Leprechaun held my hand

Oh my bonny lass

Check Mate

Photographer/Headpiece/Makeup by Andreas Boldt

You went back to the old ways, baby
let those speak for me, on their behalf
poisoning your mind and self
to bring you back home, tethered
to that place you’ve been trying to leave
you let them whisper in your ear,
sweet nothings to woo betrayal,
the only thing you trust
you’ve gone full circle
fear taking what was good for you
over love held in contempt,
lust luring you back again
already screwing you
now they’re trying to screw me
with phone calls, designer texts
intimidation sending me
into undercover, in disbelief
believing you have a hand in thuggery
you were so protective
of me, once family
willing to sell it all to the Devil you know
sending them all away
but they have your head in a vice
that false prophet Halo
surrounding you in darkness; checkmate,
stealing more than just Mary’s soul
you are weak, following
in your fathers footsteps
the one closest to you, the first
learned her place underfoot
her escape futile, her existance
cruel penance for that lost child
proving her guilt
she accepts her fate, now
that’s why she turns a blind eye
allowing your atrocious behaviour
to go unchecked – you raise your voice,
she see’s him in you and resigns
I have fallen by the way
learning to let go of my heart,
my mortality reminds me daily
that I am alone
I look forward to other things, now
bringing fulfillment here,
my father in his Twilight
where I can care for love
without risk, losing it all
the best part – his death
teaching me everything else
I need to know

/

one day, I hope
you sneak back into my bed,
just because you can and
we have an hour or two
to ourselves, like it was before
remembering our smell,
feeling our hearts open
loving each other well, adjusted
until the next time we say goodbye
and life goes on.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Distant

Pan

I could never look
at you the same way
I adored you, once
your true colours have me
in sensory overload
clutching my heaving chest
in shock, disbelief winded

reeling from the blows
taking such pride

inflicting pain, deliberately
fueling retribution over lack
of supply, shows me I never knew
you – you who would do anything
for me, except love me
finding unjustified reasons
to hurt me

because I don’t abide
I could never trust

the man that revels in pain
his empowerment borne
plotting, scheming manipulations
splitting love in two
my aorta left to bleed
out, powerless –
it makes him feel

like a man
you’re not my man

I was your meal ticket
your way to escape
demons; Dachau passing down
suffering, such a way of life
completely misunderstood
cruel Nazi mentality, heartless
your Mockingbird,

your SS badge of dishonour
worse, using children

an apparatus for torture
where love nurtured trust,
spiritual guidance squandered
on self-serving childhood needs,
your own metered out
shortcomings
love is not yours to ridicule away

denying its abundant existance
I will never trust my heart,

expose her soft underbelly
or offer her up
in sacrafice; like a lamb,
your God is a manmade
fallacy designed to subjugate
misogyny, displaced whores
rendering Madonna complexes

in perpetual conflict
I am disappointed in you

you had it all, proffered up on a silver platter
wanted for nothing, except coveted jealousy
lusting after sinful greed
you let breed and wreck havoc
Mr Black is a predator, a perpetrator
you let run roughshod over me
I am not the only one, women

your past is predictable by nature
I hope with what’s left,

you learn your lesson well
I wanted a man – a man,
not a spoiled little boy
throwing tantrums to up
the Antichrist in pursuit
of misspent youth,
ungrateful to the core

matters let go out of hand
I am in Hell

sent there to rot in your abandon
but you didn’t bargain on meeting Demeter,
who will hunt you down
to save herself, mourning winter
the long days and sleepless nights,
haunting your nightmares

she, who see’s right through you
will dance on your grave.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved

Pan

Meddle

The Joker

The Joker
plays his cards then prays
for forgiveness
to a middle eastern Christian God
before hurling abuse
to those who aren’t white
professing to love women
secretly harbouring unfathomable hate
suppressed rage
staring Red indifference in the face
of reason, his reason
an excuse for payback; vindictive
retribution designed to maximize
powerfully charged emotional punches.

♧

I have loved more than once
choosing my heart over head
batting eyelids deflecting
eggs scrambling to make sense
of the impossible scenario
time after time questioning
my self refusing to settle for anything
less than truth
watching loved ones turn
roll over, pulling the wool
over already unseeing orbs
holding on to contempt for love
lost

♤

Death has defined me
grief ripping me apart
till I am stripped bare and
‘The Joker’ plays me for a fool
his denial hardly concealed now
his truth defining him in the end
hidden underneath a facade
charm dangerously like a predators
false sense of security
when his hands are tied
his dirty hands
he tries to launder abrasive
repeatedly.

♢

Money
the root of all evil
threatens to ignite the paper trails
that have us entwined
enmeshed together by banks
loans and fine print
our future only leased
the balance drains the half full cup
sentiment caught never to be released
that Holy Grail
proving to be forever out of reach
what chance did we have?
the die has been cast.

♡

My love
my darling
you were my everything
my beautiful sweet illusion
my heart aches for remembering you
how you were before you changed colour
I fell head over feet for you and yours
grazing my knee in the process
I succumbed, numbing my defenses
getting back up being pushed back down
losing another fragment of hope
each time threatening don’t
now, the joke is on you.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved

Illusion