The Great Lost

The Fool

Nihilism gnaws at Persephone as she surrenders the last of her love to the darkness. She knows Hades will welcome her there; place a crown upon her enlightenment.

She wrestles with catastrophe.

Despair, wraps her arms around her and comfort finds a home in the familial wasteland of the Great Lost. Confusion offering up the last dying shards of illumination into the nothing.

She sinks to an all-time low.

She is broken beyond words, an unimaginable state of being, untenable suffering refusing to let go rendering her moot.

She trusts in the All of everything.

Right time, right place airs grace her presence and she is alone once again. This is her destiny? If only she could be happy here.

As above, so below.

Psyche is not stupid, knowing she must fall in order to rise, she feels compelled to find Persephone dwelling in the dark and look to the beauty hidden there; her ability to love dependant.

‘Fuck me!’ she yells.

They say no pain, no gain; no light without dark but the world burns while she waits for it all to end and it can’t come fast enough! Persephone can’t believe she signed up for this hell hole.

‘You can all suck my phantom dick!’

In the meantime, soul searching becomes a crash course on survival for her demise. She wishes — magical thoughts skip the tutorial and head straight back home where Demeter pours her a cup of sweet leaf tea.

This too shall pass.

The aftermath will give her a reprieve, a reason to put one foot in front of the other and leave those betrayers behind. Solitude giving her security in the end. A simple life if she can find a way to live.

Give thanks and gratitude.

But what about anger? Persephone wants to continue to die on her own terms admitting defeat. Psyche’s heart beat only for Cupid and yet she is not worthy of love. Everything is an illusion, a false construct by design.

It is only through death we find life.

The only life Persephone wants, is with Hades — conditional love built upon mistrust and betrayal. What hope is left when that’s all there is on offer?

© Copyright 2023, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved

Acceptance

Indigo Girl

Left alone, thoughts ring and bells toll

Clanging inside my brain; memories running down

Corridors, splitting off at the junction. Persephone – dead,

That wilted little wretch with amazing airs and graces,

Grating on the pickle of pain. Demeter with her blind eye,

Hades and his Jekyll juice Pomegranate wine

Infiltrating an indigo child holding her breath

Mauve dug in, embedding her chariot rose

Heart to a stranger. Charon, larger than life

Roaming the dark halls, death casting shadows

Wherever he went, survival weaving invisible

Threads; a silver road to nowhere, her woven makeshift

Sanctuary cocoon. It was Persephone alone in the darkness,

Warm amongst catacombs and the river Styx

Charons lantern waving in the distance side to side

taking an age to dawn here in the crawlspace of time, refuge

Settled in like mothballs and cobwebs
swung between the skull and

Crossbones; A subterranean
Mosaic of Dante’s Inferno

Where prayer echoed off the walls
falling, on deaf ears and forgiveness

Became a hopeless lost cause.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

11 Typical Unintentional Behaviors of Emotionally Hurt People

She Sells Sanctuary

Photographer/stylist: Ra Kai

It’s quiet outside

her ears adjust, vicariously
searching out cracks/
a radar mind

finding edges where paths
begin & end
& life circles

inside her four walls
escape & sigh breath
carbon dated memory

each time reflected upon
once/ a crudely stirred
softly shaken sonic echo

a lawnmower cuts
more than
the grass/

in between two or more spaces
she chooses
to wipe away the years

sealed red letters/
sifted thoughts more like
ocean liners

her past full
of Pomegranate blossom
seed

she sells her sanctuary
in blocks/
cubed quarters

organised delivery
ensures a safe return
of a very sure thing?

but not now
there is nothing left to steal.
she sells her sanctuary

from her living room
& chooses life
letting go

/

his miniature shoulders
resemble an old man
Led Zeppelin

his sticks are bundled/
all he can see
is the highway

© Copyright 2010 Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved

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• Donna Henes: Harvesting Mother Earth’s Gifts of Life (huffingtonpost.com)

Working through Cobwebs

Melbourne Street Art – Artist Unknown
Photographer: Jennifer Cox
Photo used with permission

I’m trying to work through cobwebs, he said,

with eyes pouring like rain
into a leaky boat
squaring off the shoreline
heading out to sea
avoiding Redbacks
like the plague
negotiating rogue waves
behind his back
facing his fear; ex
tended arms pull
away — escape
for a moment.

He scans the horizon
left to right that sinking
feeling farther, closer
than he expected denial; a river
too far away to row a thunder clap
into eternity
Isis turning a blind eye
Triton drags him
under, spinning
a vortex only Terra
firma can translate.

Taking the bull
by the horns he finds
solid ground wrestling
knee deep in mud that sticks
like shit on the inside,
cobwebs cling to hard
wired neurons
lodged in the gaps
in between grey,
a matter for the black
and white.

Separate facts find
fiction fornicating
in a web of deceit
by design, too lurid
for children like
Persephone – abducted
innocence; a metaphor
for rape choking the Hell
out of life, all the while
pseudo affection bribes
a handful of lollies
to sweeten the blow.

I want everything to be saved,
he said.

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

Notorious

Demeter & Persephone

Demeter’s world is falling apart
she enters the tomb
leaving behind every last bit
of skin and bone

her heart in jagged little pieces
tears condensed salted earth,
her spirit as dark as Hades, ashen
her womb, a barren undergrowth of loss, her voice, a howling banshee
sevenfold

Persephone revisited in dreams
her escape futile, Hades whispers
she runs, never holding on nor looking back

dismembered dissociation awaits
those who fail
while cadaverous limbs are discarded
fertile appendages flail
her pieces crumble to dust

Demeter withdraws her love
only to find a serpent tongue
suckling at her breast

Demeter descends, Persephone awaits
her chamber the great unclean
unashamedly devouring our lost souls

Demeter falls to her knees in despair
death is just a figment and life
here is just a memory

she breathes in the rancid air,
the smell of a distant pyre
she kisses the hand that feeds her

there are only fools here in paradise.

Copyright © 2009 Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved

Surrender

Janet Parsons Art

Snails pace, in my frenzy to move the mountains of my dreams / nightmares of pirate ships, skull and crossbones flap uncontrollably on a tumultuous sea, draw ever near.

Albatross and Kookaburra tear me apart, settling somewhere in between; salvation coming in from all sides, conjures vibration and a vortex rages, weaving through those fateful past lives — Furies casting their spell.

I have lived through aeons and yet I have not yet lived. My desire to ascend a blessing in disguise and wise, for we all must return to the stars to find peace. Our time on Earth, stepping stones to enlightenment fraught with danger and it will continue to go on and on and on.

We navigate the shit storms, weather the highs and lows, scan the horizon for those rogue waves we see coming in a little too late \ curse ourselves before they crash land on our front doorstep. They’ve brought me back down a peg or two.

My life is blessed. I have always been protected by the Gods, Goddess filling my heart with love but it’s not always been for me. I stole love and devoured hearts like Daenerys Stormborn; her last supper broke the spindle but she left her mark.

We all make mistakes, fuck up, hurt the people we love until we face ourselves in the mirror | pray for forgiveness.

Uhh!

Awakening taking an age to consolidate this solid ground, surrender showing us release in the end, so we break the wishing wheel, ride the lightening Zeus inspires and feel our way back home.

Surrender

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Flashes of Alchemical Code

Amun Ra

You, with all of your abundance —
Soul
Heart
Mind
Flesh & bone.

Your esoteric arms; a
Metaphysical circumference
Surrounding all those you love
Raising them up,
Showing up like a star.

A lighthouse.

That blue beacon
Saving souls, including your own.
Flashes of alchemical code
Roll up & over like waves
Crash a symbol in crescendo.

Bravery,
Taken to depths
Only Gods can create,
Your God
Is The All of you
& he could never be lost.

You are like Amun Ra.
Creator of the universe
Our Sun, light
Ra’s right eye
Life (& creation)

I am of Hathor
Protector of children &
Your left eye; Moonlight
For your darkness,
Your Milky Way
Your Lady of the Stars
Your Mistress of Life.

Genius,
Emanating love
Balance &
Harmony —
Holding onto us.

We breathe each other in & distill
Our fate, fortune & favour
Past, present & future
Wisdom, magic
& higher learning,

Guided by our beloved Thoth (Hermes Trismegistos).

Hathor

Thoth (Hermes Trismegistos)

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Hathor

The Motherless Child

Celtic Goddess Cordelia

Cordelia came in her Goddess gown, wild spring flowers in her hair.

She soothed my heart till I could lift my head high: pieces of me reflect back in her eyes.

I sobbed.

I let her see my broken vase and she caressed my skin like a lover.

My vase of cracks and fine lines filled—

The motherless child and I.

The Motherless Child

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

I Am

Lifting the Second Veil

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

Akashic DNA

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

My Delirium

My Delirium

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

Lovers Lament

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

Artemisia

Artemisia

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

Demeters Descent

Demeter Descending

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

Crime & Devotion

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

Penetration

The Nature of God

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

The Rainmaker

Matthew William Haylock

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

Happy Bubble

Matthew William Haylock ‘The Rainmaker’

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

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

Delilah

In the depths
Of my despair, flawed

Imperfections serve only to pander to Delilah.

She is much too fast for freedom, too slow to let go.

She could never bring her self to Samson half arsed.

Her darkness tempers his desire

Cool, waters his deflated ego

And she, too far away from home

Floats like a lotus.

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

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