Lady Lazarus & the Voice of Ratified Reason

“If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment”. JD Butler

He’s using me, I’m using him – both of us working on a palatable means to several ends & everyone’s happy on the dance floor, except me / Lady Lazarus, fully loaded

machinations mimicking my madness & everything I have survived is temporarily erased from my memory / the neglect, the rapes, the con artists & the turning of blind eyes. The violence

of insanity, cleansing the last of my contemptible dirty pieces. A ruse in the end, designed to ratify my plea bargain, still set to drown in a sea of toxic shame, churning

out green bile – something the dogs love to salivate over.

/

It all sounds so depressing, except for the sun that continues to rise; refracted light beams infiltrating my cracks,

forcefully illuminating all remaining fragments of hope that haven’t yet marvelled at a setting sun. I am thankful.

If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment, you would all marvel at my unadulterated halo & drop to your knees, prostrate

but I am a mere mortal woman. No God could ever carry me across the sand or walk on water or set me down on the island of my choice,

without some sort of comeuppance; paying the ferryman requires nerves of steel / I lack the will to either live or die,

in peace.

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

Imagination

Astral Dissociation & the Unattainable Cryogenic Pathway to the Stars

“Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense at all to anyone with amnesia” JD Butler

Give me a .50 calibre assault weapon and I’ll show you how it’s done properly!

*

I’m from New Zealand and I can still marvel at the Milky Way, navigate my eyes toward the Southern Cross & find South in a flash.

Orion has a huge belt and scabbard and it still makes no sense; forbidden cliché sneaks up like a sniper in a sonnet.

What matters, is that poetry is devoid of faux pars and bright stars or anything obviously too subliminal for the masses that may require a deeper space continuum to ponder; an intellect that uses advanced thought to communicate,

falling on deaf and dying stereocilia hairs. Ears, to those who need further clarification, while my advanced alien brain sits within a universe only 2% of the world’s population can grasp.

The bourgeoisie cream themselves over it, while they play with their pencil and sharpener.

/

Poetry is only for those with a university education – an English degree, followed by a Diploma in Counselling and a Master of Creative Writing (an advanced degree with Honours). A PhD means power has been attained and is now ready to wield.

We, are merely stepping stones to someone else’s grandiose glory. Poverty and distress are relegated to the past, hidden in a black hole; inertia becoming the internalised abuser. Orion was once the great cosmic overlord,

looking down his nose.

/

Better not piss off the editor either, she’s next in line followed closely by someone we all know and love with his proverbial nose shoved up both of their arse’s.

Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense to anyone at all with amnesia, but it is my way of creatively dying; poetic suicidal justice, is in a league all of it’s own.

*

Now, you’ll all have fodder for your next project fail and that makes me an evil genius.

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

Conversant

Insurgents & Demons

If it weren’t for you

O-Great-Poetic-One,

I’d be dead.

Dead!

Instead,

I brutally murder

my self in thoughts

several times a day,

churning over the past,

the future & my

flawed imperfections.

I pander to worms &

the soup of blood

& bone,

till I can’t stand

it any more

&/or they take me

away.

Torture temporarily appeasing

the masochistic God

who takes down

mental notes

& I transform parables

into atheism,

in order to re-line

my keloid brain.

She is brazen.

My alter-ego

tempts me to desire

a public beheading /

a martyr’s death

by diatribe & by

my inner monologue.

What poppycock!

Disbelief betrays

her ever-widening circle of friends,

bringing her closer

to the edge, where that fabled Fool

steps out into no-man’s land,

off that ledge of no return.

However,

I choose to die

in stanza’s, paraphrasing

my life into mythical metaphor’s

that transform those insurgents &

demons into words,

trying to leave behind

another seedless watermelon

Neruda would be proud!

*

The truth is,

I want someone

to love me

but Mr Young said it better,

‘it doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you’.

Is it any wonder

to want to die?

Is it any wonder

I’m still alive?

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

Backshed Brazen

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

/

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

A facade?

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

Miriam broke her heart!

/

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

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

/

Brazen sits in the corner under her dunce cap.

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

But I know!

I know what went on behind the backshed – you!

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

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

Sylvia Prefers Madness over Insanity

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

\

Trust. Pain.

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

pretending patience is a virtue. We all watch,

a slow burn, already warming the tips

of her lasciviously long

fingers,

licking at her lips.

/

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

another stone, another reason to beg

forgiveness.

Sabotage sinking to a new low.

\

Silvia’s far too unreasonable, although

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

& feet securely strapped,

her mouth,

stuffed shut with gauze & gaffer tape.

No sign of life – metal bars

& padded cells

resembling reason.

/

Floral oriental lilies.

\

Shes always known how to let go.

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

Backshed Bullshit Press

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

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

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

Standards must be kept after all.

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

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

We must make ourselves look good.

Weed out the riff raff as it were.

Make a name for ourselves.

Only the chosen few will be supported.

Friends and family.

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

Fact

Freaky Fish & the Stench of Rotting Meat

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

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

I should have taken them all out.

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

Messy

Honesty Died with Bukowski

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

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

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

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

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

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

without any background checks.

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

Dim

Astral Dissociation & the Unattainable Cryogenic Pathway to the Stars

“Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense at all to anyone with amnesia” JD Butler

Give me a .50 calibre assault weapon & I’ll show you how it’s done properly!

*

I’m from New Zealand & I can still marvel at the Milky Way, navigate my eyes toward the Southern Cross & find South in a flash.

Orion has a huge belt and scabbard & it still makes no sense; forbidden clichès sneaking up like a sniper in a sonnet.

What matters, is that poetry is devoid of faux pars & bright stars or anything obviously too subliminal for the masses that may require a deeper space continuum to ponder, an intellect that uses advanced thought to communicate,

falling on deaf & dying stereocilia hairs. Ears, to those who need further clarification, while my advanced alien brain sits within a universe only the top 2% of the world’s population can grasp.

The bourgeoisie cream themselves over it, while they play with their pencil & sharpener.

/

Poetry is only for those with a university education – an English degree, followed by a Diploma in Counselling & a Master of Creative Writing (an advanced degree with Honours). A PhD means power has been attained & is now ready to weild.

We, are merely stepping stones to someone else’s grandiose glory. Poverty & distress are relegated to the past, hidden in a black hole; inertia becoming the internalised abuser. Orion was once the great cosmic overlord,

looking down his nose.

/

Better not piss off the editor either, she’s next in line followed closely by someone we all know & love with his proverbial nose shoved up both of their arses.

Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense at all to anyone with amnesia, but it is my way of creatively dying; poetic suicidal justice, is in a league all of it’s own.

*

Now, you’ll all have fodder for your next project fail & that makes me

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

Conversant

Lady Lazarus & the Voice of Ratified Reason

“If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment”. JD Butler

He’s using me, I’m using him – both of us working on a palatable means to several ends & everyone’s happy on the dance floor, except me / Lady Lazarus, fully loaded

machinations mimicking my madness & everything I have survived is temporarily erased from my memory / the neglect, the rapes, the con artists & the turning of blind eyes. The violence

of insanity, cleansing the last of my contemptible dirty pieces. A ruse in the end, designed to ratify my plea bargain, still set to drown in a sea of toxic shame, churning

out green bile – something the dogs love to salivate over.

/

It all sounds so depressing, except for the sun that continues to rise; refracted light beams infiltrating my cracks,

forcefully illuminating all remaining fragments of hope that haven’t yet marvelled at a setting sun. I am thankful.

If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment, you would all marvel at my unadulterated halo & drop to your knees, prostrate

but I am a mere mortal woman. No God could ever carry me across the sand or walk on water or set me down on the island of my choice,

without some sort of comeuppance; paying the ferryman requires nerves of steel / I lack the will to either live or die,

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

Imagination

Ms Writer (Drem Inspired)

           Me – Jodine Derena Butler 

I write because it helps me to express myself abstractly when I can’t figure out what’s going on around me in my head I write in layers most of it shit I’ve completed three undergraduate papers in creative writing I learned some techniques different ways to write but ultimately I didn’t go through with the Masters in Creative Writing I still get published I write as a distraction I write when I’m moved (usually depressed) I write about random stuff when I can’t sleep (like now) I’ve even opened random pages of a dictionary letting my fingers point to words with my eyes closed made a list then wrote something about what my unconscious picked out for me I write to avoid what’s going on outside my solitude I don’t like being distracted by outside influences when I am overwhelmed in emotional pain distressed angry whatever has flawed me in words I can write for hours days on end without stopping I’m learning to write flash fiction I read historical researched novels by Phillipa Gregory Ken Follett I love medieval times the clothing the way things were so absurd I’m naked in bed at 11.50pm wide awake Friday 4th December in Cairns Queensland Australia I might write something about bees tea leaves one day I’m going through some trauma right now so I am all over the show but this too shall pass I’m 47 48 in January I’m living a very full on life I play/ed various roles within it I haven’t yet found all those different voices to tell my story I’m closed up or free spirited it’s either one or the other my roller derby name was ‘Flash in the Panties’ in a past life that could be a funny story I’m really fucked right about now what color is your underwear?

© Copyright 2015, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’.  All Rights Reserved.

REBLOGGED: By Art of Drem, 2015

REBLOGGED on Dream Big Dream Often

A Poem is a Poem

A poem
descriptive words
concrete
abstract

convey a rhythm
sight and sounds galore
intriguing tales
a word-smiths journey

then
lines that twist
are break-dancing sonnets played
alive and cherished

alchemy
anarchy
orthodoxical paradigms
shift

intuitive tangents
coalesce
together
expanding thought

each of us
is random
is abstract is concrete
is creativity at best

no tasks here

metonyms in poems
metaphoric poems
creative poems
penned

© Copyright 2007 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Happy Faces

So this is what it’s come to
distant memories of innocence
lost long ago
memories relived, mistakes
my undoing, all played
out on life’s stage

you’re out there miles away
untouchable, I tell myself
over and over where I’ve gone wrong
it’s too much for the bravest,
I’m not
I know what they’re thinking

I hear it in my head
like a broken record, jumping
over lines.
I look for ways out,
ahead of my future
there is no parallel universe

in my world
just constant reminders
of what I fail to become
and could have been
if it weren’t for me
I am swimming to stop the sinking

feeling, dragging me
down.  it would only take one gulp
one backward sigh of relief
to make it all go away
I never do anything by halves
I am no saint

no martyr for a greater cause
I leave behind everything
that ever was
they could never understand
what I know is my truth,
my world

I don’t belong here anymore
than the rest of us
but you don’t complain
if I could reach out and touch,
the sky, I would
melt away, floating my drops

I trace tracks with my finger
down the window pane
my happy face
smiling back at me

(in memory of Ian Curtis, Joy Division – D.O.D, 18th May 1980.  The birth of New Order.  The 2007  movie release of Ian’s life and times is called Control)

© Copyright 2009 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Fiendish Ghouls (for Androgoth)

As darkness falls and ghouls doth prowl
and hells black gate upon thee growls
its creaking moan bewitched with fright
opens wide into the night

fiendish ghouls who scour the dirge
of mortal blood and soulless ones
beseeching those in grave despair
to haunt and snatch their bleeding fear

and blood lies pooled in mortal sin
breathing foul amidst the din
the ghouls they come with fiery eyes
and laughter as they ride the skies

drawing near to slake their thirst
their evil reign desiring curse
in their thousands they doth come
circling prey and guileless ones

suckling on our bleeding hearts
their lust for blood and pain and such
they shriek and soar and dip and dive
in and out our mortal lives

tearing at our wounded scars
paralysing us with farce
they eat until they can no more
our souls left withered at deaths door

© Copyright 2009 Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved

I Am Sylvia

I wonder how it was.
Sylvia locked away
all those years
inside
untouchable –
incarcerated like Frida
painting her
escape

I am alone in her.
My own padded cell
akin to 3 square meals
a day
if I am lucky,
no daily visitors
for I am cursed
unlike Sylvia – blessed

I may as well be
a ward of state,
owned, privately
operated on a pen
and paper budget
my four walls like
Fear and (self) Loathing
in New Zealand

I pose the question.
Many times, on
deaf ears, meaning
and purpose, meaning
whatever will be will
be, but for now
I am Sylvia –
there is hope for me yet.

© 2009 Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved

First published by Blackmail Press, Issue 28,  http://www.blackmailpress.com/Index28.html

Muldoons Evil Twin

Poetry Live on Tuesday
nights, open mic
from above the Comedy Club on Queen (07)
to Thirsty Dog on K (09)
my humble beginnings
behind the Glue Pot in the 90’s
Java Jive, Raw Fish Salad
Karen Hunter in one of her primes
Temple Bar up on stage
improvising on song
it didn’t take me long to piss the locals off –
less than a glass of wine
so don’t make a scene
too late
Bohemian floral skirts
and wacky hats, skinny
pin legs and black hair
standard poet garb it seems
Murray Haddow pushing buttons
swapping tongues,
split personalities
coming alive in accents
bigger than Graeme Brazier
Right on cue, sex workers
across the street, never
get rid of them or me
Montana Poetry Day (05?)
I wish I was a millionaire;
I would buy every great poet loser
their own book
Performance poetry at its best
Poetry Out West
a kaleidoscope of words
and I can hear the audience cringe
I’m looking better tonight, apparently
It’s been two years since
my presence spoke volumes –
I must have sounded like
Kerouac cackling back in the day
like Muldoon’s evil twin.

(Inspired by Murray Haddow at his Poetry Live performance at The Thirsty Dog on Karangahape Road, Auckland, New Zealand 07/04/09)

Copyright 2009. Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved.