Karma, Brainiac & Putin’s Balls of Steel

https://poetryoutwest.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/karma-brainiac-putins-balls-of-steel/

The Process of Evolving with a Special Needs Child

Atlas Justice

Life is good
But sometimes it’s incredibly hard.

Atlas wakes up at 5am, jumps into bed and snuggles me. He’s wet, but I’m too tired to move except to throw my arm over him and pray he’ll fall back to sleep. Peace, lasted all of ten minutes.

Sleep deprivation creates at atmosphere that’s blurry at best and tunnel visioned at worst. Quick to rise, de-escalation tactics take all my efforts to stay cool, calm and reasonably collected while I fumble through toast and a nappy change.

I make my coffee, roll a cigarette and head outside to watch the sunrise from the balcony. So far, so good. Atlas is giggling with his iPad, seated at the table and picking at his breakfast. Happy, lasted all of 10 minutes.

He doesn’t want toast, he wants something from the pantry instead except that’s not going to happen. Out come the fingernails – gouging and scratching and a temperamental defiance that escalates into a full blown tantrum.

Matty storms out of the bedroom, red-eyed and livid and puts his foot down. Peace, lasts all of another ten minutes before the pattern repeats.

I’ve had enough too. Gone are my attempts to keep the child’s mood on an even keel, gone are those feelings of inadequacy that I can’t contain Atlas long enough to let his father have a much needed sleep-in and so I take him to his bedroom, shut the stairwell gate and try to discipline the problem.

I fail miserably.

Snap! The proverbial shit hits the fan once again and this time, silence is a warning best served cold. Matty descends, a leg is slapped, a door is slammed and peace returns for at least an hour this time.

Meanwhile, I contemplate taking Atlas out of the house for a drive before he starts the cycle again. I panic. My clothes are in the bedroom, I’m not sure where the car keys are, will Matty approve, will Atlas lose it in the car anyway? I decide to wait a while longer. My jaw is sore from grinding my teeth.

Matty needs respite but I’m all there is and so we lurch from dawn to well into the early hours, exhausted and running on fumes.

Atlas is a cockblocker too.

The countdown to esctasy on hold for the indefinite future. Foreplay, fails to get either of us off the ground or high enough to move to first base, let alone dive in fingers first and squeeze one out. The conditions of our release barely blow off steam and the only thing getting hard, is life for the next two months, while we reassess the situation.

A temporary adjustment. Life is actually pretty good. Most days Atlas is on form and we make a great team but school holidays with a child with special needs, without any respite, requires strategy.

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved. First published on Raising Atlas Rising, 2022

Last Mile Home

I feel like I’m on the last mile home. Everyone is gone. Although most people are just lost trying to survive.

I think about people, wonder how they are but I don’t really believe they care much. ‘Trust no one’, is being bandied about like Al Capone’s mandate in the Godfather but I’d rather have him on side than deal with the average Joe Blow shitcunt who’s self absorbed selfishness means it’s only a matter of time before they want something.

Everyone is just trying to make it through another night, live another day and create a semblance of paradise in their own backyard before they flip the bird for the last time.

I’m really struggling to make my ends meet. I can see no end and I’m getting older by the year. I find myself dreaming of the last mile home; the last death row to freedom.

Last Mile Home by Kings of Leon

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

Ether Box

Ethereal

My ether box
graunching & grinding through stargates
shudders, misfiring synapses
lurch from push to pull
ascending
descending
traversing my self worth,
mitigating losses
tempering gains.
I am giving in,
my self esteem proving much harder
to love and set free.

I’m trying to make peace my lover.
Finding my path with you
is unconventional at best
excruciating at worst,
leaving behind
socially acceptable hopes & dreams
settling in to formalities — contracts
designed to pave the way; a gold lining
to my pewter paradise
on that long road to happiness.
I stare into Aphrodite through my looking glass
& blow her a kiss goodbye.

Skeleton’s eventually decay
but demons still want to purge pain,
set me up to fail
tempt Narcissus to stray,
to step away from his reflection
& risk a coward’s death.
I ask the Goddess for forgiveness
trust my fate & fury
& instinct to guide me.
Psyche would lead me astray
to plummet over the edge
of reason — but Aphrodite will broker a deal.

Start over. My fossil fuelled forge
will always find a way forward,
transform blue light beams
into fire, illuminate those pitchforks
& burning crosses hiding in my ether;
shadows that threaten
to cast spells & incinerate whole galaxies,
merely pseudo reflections
of my reality. I choose you
& take no prisoners at the same time,
for I choose wisely.

There is no burden I cannot bear
when it comes to you,
how you see yourself is a reflection.
We hold our head & hearts
in their hands; their hands
create a destiny for us both.
We are intertwined & enlightened —
a gift from God.
Our souls recognise, accept & understand
there is only now, the past is gone. The future is
whatever we divine.

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

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

Dead

Shitcunt

You’re dead to me. I’m dead.

My mother with her snide, jealous perversion sticking her tongue down my husband’s throat.

Sick cunt
Shit cunt

My mother’s a fucked up, narcissistic shit cunt

and I’m a whore.

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

Ms Necessity & Tragedy’s Limbo

Ms Necessity, negates a decision to go left or right, preferring to stay on course crash landing her way through one of those flourescent white barrier’s that sneaks up in your headlights, at the end of a long road.

She chooses to wipe herself out by launching into a paddock full of daisies, coming to a screaming halt in an old weeping willow tree where her mangled wreck, dangles in its branches like Mr Wesley’s Flying Ford Anglia.

She wouldn’t leave behind any skid marks if it could be helped.

Necessity cares about the beautiful blue patch of meanies & over-ripe blackberries that would otherwise be squelched into bruised crimson & clover – leaving a blight on an otherwise picturesque, if not comedic scene.

Of course Tragedy saw her coming & spotted the wreck a mile off, while in a trance somewhere in limbo. She has a way of turning up unexpected-like & departs just as quickly & you’ll always end up with a little scratch to remember her by.

There’s not much room for Tradegy & Necessity to co-exist. Both see peace as an oxymoron. The why’s and what for’s are an irrelevant waste of grey matter, but the writing has always been on the wall, if anyone cares to look (behind the iron curtain).

They’ll both lock me up given half the chance & if I wasn’t so tired I’d do it my bloody self & throw away the key!

All I can say, is that the medication better be good or I’ll be asking for a second opinion. Mr Brownstone seems a lot more enlightened than big pharma right about now & all I need to do is find a little entertainment on Torrent!

Tragedy, bless her, is still leaning toward oblivion while Necessity would prefer to quietly pass over without any fuss.

Now, she likes the idea of flying.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

No Rhyme or Reason

Just get into the swing!

Do a little

hop, slide a little

side-step,

twist a little

twirl.

~

Go,

get carried

away

with the ebb &

flow,

lost

in the moment but

never

gone.

Fine timing a back

beat

into the future,

focussing on

movement,

rhythm &

sway.

No rhyme

or reason,

just have a good

night’s sleep.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Think Twice

I feel so protected, now.

South London ethics infused with shades of Grand Caneria – a past life unbeknownst to me.

He has a bark.

A hard, sharp stabbing bark that pierces through my psyche, knocking the wind from my bellow, to think twice.

I do think twice,

biting my tongue knowing silence is way more effective than responding – remembering that feeble psychological brain I once knew.

Damson & plum jam on toast, the chew in between sips of instant coffee biding my time,

thinking.

My tongue would rather be sliding up, down & around that everwidening smile, knowing I have things to say that can wait

for now.

I don’t blame you any more than you don’t want to hear, twice reminded that I’ve been here before (same same

but different).

I’m not gnawing at my nails in vain, rather quietly contemplating what it would mean if I fail.

If we fail, I’ll take all the good I can get & never look back.

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

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

Portobello Road and the Earl of Lonsdale

Finding feeling

My way under

               Grounded

Red Double D’s

Facing forward – heading toward

Portobello Road

Where I think I’ll find a vintage coat?

Navigating steps, a labyrinth of 

Shops

          stalls

                  markets 

                                and food

Except for the rude

Middle eastern Joseph I turned my back on

Walking first left then right

Following the sunshine – the Bello

Hot and cold, on standby

Off with his head!

/

The woolley cardigan I borrowed

Along with my confusing glasses

The ill-fitting jeans

Crazy, uncomfortable 

Wishing I didn’t have big bloody blisters!

Very far from home; my bed covers pulled

The fan on full

Stumbling into the Earl of Lonsdale 

Pub for a cider

Hiding in a corner ‘snug’ 

Made in the seventeen hundreds and

It seems fitting I would have to bend

Dwarves and buxom barmaids

Tourists  and stranger’s alike

Peer out from under mead

Sly Lord’s eyed

/ 

I, need to gather my thoughts

Consider what it would mean to start

                                                                     over

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

Reprieve