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.
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
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I am a whirlwind of indignity
A seething wrath of maelstrom
I am the all-seeing probing eye
Calling out subterfuge and lies
I am the calm before the storm
The thunder and lightening excuse
I am the violent edge of reason
The force behind insanity’s truce.
I am the truth, the way and the light
Infiltrating your delusions of grandeur
I am the beacon warning lighthouse
Flashing morse code in the ether
I am my self inside all your drama
Calling it as I see it
I am beyond my years of sacrafice
Laying my heart to rest.
I am the Barron River snake
Carving my way through life
I am wide awake woke
And there’s no where you can hide
I am the foothold on a cliff
The finger spaces between
I am the carnal knowledge incumbent
Hell bent on escape.
I am a fire woman’s Psyche
A Goddess to the core
I am your Hades vengeance incarnate
With nothing left to lose
I am your Freddy Kruger nightmare
The Punch and Judy show
I am your juicy jezebel whore
Mary Magdalene halo.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
i
Cyberus the black dog, creeps in under Mary’s skin, licking his lips, penetrating her holes, gnawing away at her sinewy tendons and succulent bones.
He rapes her subconscious crawl space, probing his wet nose into her closet crotch, sniffing out the buried remains there like Cujo; gnarled lips, protruding tongue and crazed eye stare.
Mary pricks her ears, Cyberus howls at the April blood moon, his mourn calling her out from behind her silvery veil, behind her mindful interludes – moonbeams bleed crimson and red rivers pour from her nightmares blurring the edges of her days.
Cyberus spreads his malaise like a disease.
He infiltrates cavities and grey matter mimicking the ebb and flow of tides; dopamine highs and serotonin lows, squalls hovering on the horizon – the ramblings of a mad woman batting her eye lashes, baring her sharp teeth.
ii
Mary flatter’s her fans upright for .50c an hour to satisfy Cyberus’ insatiable appetite, gulping down terabytes like an insomniac slip streaming strip scenes and Mary rubs herself raw, learning how to love the hands that feed her.
The water slides off her duck downed back, down valleys and cracks her bareback fingertips squeezing every last drip from her drops.
Mary turns off the shower, wipes away the steam from the window and peers outside. Two stray dogs have escaped lockdown, causing havoc on the streets.
She would take them both in and give them a good feed, if she had a backyard big enough to bury bones.
iii
Tom stands outside on the pavement, peers up at the window, his threadbare trenchcoat just as superfluous as his empty pockets, except for the cornerstone content bulge. He watches Mary’s jailbird swagger dance and sway behind a steam curtain.
iv
Cyberus can feel her skin crawl, he allows himself to rise – settling in between her mind and the blurred edges of breasts, buttocks and inner thighs.
Infared penetrating his night vision.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
1.
Am I a feminist?
I make the fantasy real for him, giving up parts of myself –
My look
My mind
My body
My heart.
Pieces of me, served up over silver platitudes,
three course meals
and French champagne.
2.
Malleable breasts and tight buttocks
reclaim their complimentary one half of the whole
reality
filling holes in Psyche every time she is alone.
Separate and connected,
happy and unremarkable
half truths, open to anyone who will listen.
3.
In her deepest recesses, she is compartmentalised – a waif, aloof.
Dissociation
learned to leave a long time ago, doing only what they wanted to make them happier
for the two of us.
A tragedy, waiting for a fairy tale ending that doesn’t involve
the death of Eros.
Instead she paints pictures that never quite get finished –
My pencils
My paints
My inks
My pastel chalks
covered in charcoal dust fingerprints,
scared of letting go.
4.
She still held on
to dreams
of Volkswagon beetles,
Austin land crabs,
Holden utes and XD Falcon
panel van’s reinforced with 6ml steel plates
pink stickered on the side of the road.
5.
I say goodbye to all the abusers –
My family
My friends
My lovers
My colleagues.
Self care now cloistered in her abandon while you watch,
published one day by some back shed press, captioned
‘Clichèd-Poet-Ends-It-All’
because forfeiture has no shame.
She was happier then
and then she died,
turning grey like her foibles and colourless lines.
6.
Am I a feminist?
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
It’s taken conciliatory surprise to remind Ariadne of her desires;
Her pending resignation of all things malodious and contrite.
Old crone bones proffer up a willingness to decay
Lay still, let mummified old sticks and stones settle in.
A labyrinth of bygones remind her of a well spring run dry
A summer of joy, cut short. The autumn equinox bears down
Bending boughs to straighten those willowy heart strings once and for all.
She feels the clew constrict, stretch the last of the wine —
The last dram of mortality’s mundane, quenching nothing in the end
But a lust for a life lost, rendering her a prisoner and one of Klimpt’s women
Peeling back the golden years in rebellion, a fight to the last breath.
Abandoned yule tides of December wax and wane
When all she wants are lilies, and to be crowned Queen of the Damned
To be held in the arms of a consecrated man.
Alas, winter brings sadness and loss, chaos organising
The last remaining gasp muted in surrender, a fish. One final beat
Forces remnants of hope to leave as gracefully as the slamming
Of a door / his melted wings and her angst roar!
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Little Red Riding Hood wearing shoes, stepping through balancing on pins, holding on to handles in case the latch breaks and the garden gate swings shut, accidentally locking Goldilocks out while she’s peering through foggy windows vying for attention, except she’s standing on tiptoes wondering what went wrong wishing she was back behind a red door out of the cold, flying like Dorothy clicking her way upside down, looking around for a place called home behind a blue door, where fish peer out from holes in shipwrecks inside a fishtank looking outside into my world, wishing Ariel was a shark that ruled the universe with clown fish laughing behind closed doors ordering sushi, just so she could meet Sponge Bob and go out on a date in a restaurant behind a green door seated in a corner watching everyone stuff their faces on pork bones and rib cages smothered in red sauce that sticks to the side of her wicked stepmother’s face, picking breadcrumbs and gingerbread between crooked teeth, eyeing up the shoes hiding behind a wooden door in an attic where Cinderella keeps her mice, making it impossible for Alice to find the key to a parallel universe where her doppelganger is one of three fairies destined to raise Aurora into a raving lunatic behind bars, until a knight in shining armour sees her hair and hoists himself up into a flying machine, snatching Rapunzel before she ends up covered in thorns, talking to a teapot and candlestick waiting the hills to come alive, just so she can close the door and her eyes.
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
If it’s not the bloody buzzing mozzies, it’s a bell jar of mixed blessings and a monologue of nothing but geese!
Voices resounding, reimagining, conjuring up memories about red shoes and dwarves and something out of Aesopica!
This totally ridiculous,
unwanted attention seeking behaviour burns my eyes, while my jaw grinds like carpet burn and my ears ache.
If I have to bite the bullet – I need to do it by 9pm and knock it back with a big shot of poison!
I’m not up for this kind of angst, destined to play and replay on repeat. I already made peace a priority but where is she now?
(Sylvia is waiting in line for electroconvulsive therapy, just to wipe the slate clean; clear the air so-to-speak).
That’s the truth of the matter!
Finding my own voice and lifting the skullcap off Pandora’s Box, just enough to breathe.
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
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
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 jeckyll 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
Desire.
Manifest in music, love, people and places.
A heart-throbbing beat to a rhythm only Demeter knows, her secrets etched into her bones. Intricate carvings honed into marrow, and stem cells multiply like a plague of disgruntled wasps.
Anger.
That sudden rush of indignation, followed by a concoction of vengeance and vindication – abdication and a refusal to surrender. Hades infiltrates Persephone, her abduction an embodiment of everything war, consumed in his indifference.
People.
All that is love and all that is hate, two halves of the same coin and no one escapes joy, ecstasy, grief and pain. You can run but you can’t hide – everyone has to pay Charon to get into the after life.
Temperance.
Biting tongues, letting go, being the better person, swallowing those hard lumps and walking away relatively unscathed by comparison. There will always be someone who offends and someone who is offended. Which came first?
Balance.
Good and bad, black and white, up and down, left or right. Choices and free will all come at a cost. Pros and cons, rights and wrongs; there is only compromise, but that middle ground remains as grey as the ghost it inhabits. A visceral, haunting entity.
Atonement.
As elusive as the Holy Grail, hidden inside Pandoras Box in a chapel somewhere in Africa. Peace is not what Hades is about, his warmongering lust for grandiose self-entitlement takes no prisoners. Still, Zeus brokered a deal for his part in Demeters wrath and Persephones demise.
Death
and rebirth – the Fates will have their way and so the cycle continues.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
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. 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.
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
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
“Love & trust; butterflies dancing the jitterbug of intimacy” JD Butler
Eros,
enlightened, child-like & open, a huge lotus in full bloom, full of all the goodness in this world, his beautiful broken body without any malevolent, preconceived notion’s designed to use & abuse.
He stole Psyche away, saving her spirit in the process, magnetic pulses strobe lighting his way ahead, kinesthetic mind & limbs – delightful fullbodied jolts, his presence filling up the many holes in her senses.
Psyche,
a mere mortal woman; barefoot, pedicured nails flashing glimpses of autumn in-between the dirt, her toes digging in, surrounded by jealous sister’s who would pick & pull her apart given half the chance.
She struggles, resisting all that is good for her, sidestepping melodies with fragrant twists & turns; allowing old fashioned vintage love to lead her astray, before two left feet trip up & over, falling into his arms.
Trust,
in full swing, is the opposite of temptation & betrayal, so she stays & sways to his tune, soul breathing learning to trust a backbeat into grace.
© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
#dailyprompt
“Persephone never quite forgave injustice, but she did learn to shed her skin” JD Butler
You came over larger than life, in all your big beautiful buxom-ness,
I got you naked.
My legs wrapping themselves around you like spider star’s, our flambuoyant embraces creating seismic ripples in our milky way.
When you weren’t whingeing about the cold – manifesting uncontrollable shivers & shakes, I watched your face smile like iridescent plankton sparkling in the moonlight; the ebb & flow of your once moored reserve.
You let it all hang out under cover of darkness, except for artificial red lights intermittently flashing, innocent for all of it’s risquè innuendos but oh so enlightening!
*
I don’t presume to know you intimately, although you remind me of Persephone – Hades having honed her fury, tempering Demeter’s mournful wrath all thanks to Hercate.
My third eye dived into your psyche, recognising myself in your reflection. Tidal waves of emotion crashed through and over, till I could see and you could see me.
*
Persephone never quite forgave injustice, but she did learn how to shed her skin & find rebirth in the spring,
bursting into wild rain.
© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
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…
© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved
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
There has been a shift in me; side lining the old ways, finding hope where there was none, obstacles I once circled, dismantled cages my lion once fixated upon, the enemy – my feminine intuition
strength, I found without glasses raised in my periphery far beyond any sudden obscurant deviant landscape filled with Kings Pardon’s, crystal clear upon reflection – I’ve changed
my stipplings more fluid than transparency could have foretold a straight line in the beginning, my wagered war under siege, till it and I spilled out, replacing what was left with artistic endearment
I unpack my bundle now, denying lace doilies on the armrest and turn my back on your silhouette; wallowing in self pity, my demons are fornicating with your rosary beads, lambasted in disquiet
I have witnessed your demise and I too descended into Hell, double standards raping and pillaging my identity, till she was as bereft, staring your demons down so you could see yourself
I am raised from those ashes, I am emblazened wearing a Red beacon-like flag, my Phoenix set to soar North never looking back, for if I think of you, I am at once torn left blindside and I refuse
I stand alone in my dock; my blue eyes pierce your reign, my laser beams cutting through all those cloaked illusions you conjure, for I burn inside you, igniting scrolls of discarded deadwood you can’t deny
Let us be done with this shade! You can’t have your old school tart by eating her, out of business or waltz her off her feet with your inflated ego – the facts are irrefutable betrayal, denial won’t save you
falling into that rabbit hole, that jester court ball full of grandiose promises, all but a mirage in my crystal; my Goddess is much older than your crucified false prophet, and I am no Martyr for a lost cause.
© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
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
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 the moment.
he scans the horizon
left to right that sinking
feeling farther, closer
than he expected denial; a river in Egypt
too far away to row
a thunder clap into eternity,
Isis turning a blind eye
Triton dragging him
under, spinning
a vortex only Terra
firma can translate.
taking the bull
by the horns, he finds
solid ground wrestling
Taurus, 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
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
Here we go again
for those of you sick
of this shit – Karma
Happiness, eludes me
over-analyzing everything
searching for that choice to make
Looking to purpose choose life
simplicity a complex solution
blind, numb, lost & forgotten
My brain hard-wired my eyes shut
Persistent Depressive Disorder
convincingly sees only what was
Nothing gets any better
I’ve never known anything different
happiness is Far Far Away, folklore
Farther apart I age, no wiser
life flashes before my eyes, wasted
it’s a miracle I have survived thus far
I may as well be dead
it’s like I’m dead
I feel dead
Burdons not just my own; contagion
leaching into every soul I touch
Incubus fornicate in my sleeplessness
Pervasive nightmares & thoughts
leave little light – my aura
hedonism postulating pleasure
Shit shows on at 4am
Doom & disaster, spiritituality
leper colonies shun; shamed
beyond toxicity
I am cursed
so is everyone in it
locked up for my own safety
Where is Lilith?
© Copyright 2015, Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved
REBLOGGED: By Art of Drem, 2015
