A Mummers Dance: Demeters Descent into Hades

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

Rheumatic Stigmata

The bed creaks like your bones
that moan and groan
that slow grind through clenched teeth,
that need between the sheets

~

It’s August now
as cold as it gets here in Winter.
I’m buying an electric blanket
to warm you through; least I run you through
with my lasciviously pointy finger!

Still, I wrap my legs
around your freezing appendages,
making a spoonful of sugar
while you lick the cream
from your Cheshire 😀

I can’t help but bear your stubborn,
stoic Far North Queenslander pride;
pleasured simplicity, complicit
with your Will to burn the wick
at both ends, ajoint screaming
a string of profanity

In Summer, I knead
your splintered lamb shank
while you shovel nutrition down
with a tincture of mindfullness,
layer upon layer of oil, and Green Tea
setting the scene for a modern beer

I find it hard, to watch your tenacity
come face to face with Dachau – Grim
barking out his contempt
while she ducks for cover in sewage…

We have to make the trip worthwhile
or its all for naught; she signs a cross
Pope John Paul II raised the host
because he had all the respect in the world

for Mary.  Sometimes I wonder
what will become of our inheritance
if the light at the end of the tunnel
really is another oncoming train?

We have to find a way through
our fragile past lives where we would
seethe on the outside and cower on the in,
if it weren’t for temperance; sharp edges constrained by blunt force trauma

In the meantime, I heat the purple wheat bag in the microwave
laying it carefully between the sheets

You know I love you most when you least expect it

© Copyright 2015, Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

RE BLOGGED on Dream Big Dream Often

Eyes Open

there was that initial air about you.
the first time we met
you were looking through
steel-framed glasses
but not through me;
you were stealing glances.
I could see you
putting two & two together

you said you were single
although your eyes
were screaming NO!
wary at the thought
of yet another
indecent intrusion
into your most private after-life
& I gave you space

your camera rested on your heart
I recall it suspended –
another set of eyes
leaving lasting impressions
that only you could render
I lowered my dress, let it fall to the ground
& you captured me
my heart beating like a drum

I waited for you

when I was on tour
when I was laid up on my bed
abandoned, lonely in Thailand
I wondered what sort of a man you were then,
those glasses reflected memories like prisms;
living colour
lighting up my room

I see you now
those delightfully dirty
deep dark eyes of yours
smouldering desire,
my cheeks aflame
is all I can do – Crimson
you leave me breathless
& I am head over feet

I can feel you inside me
even before you reach out
& touch my face
kiss my lips, neck
trace your fingertips
over my aching body
to where you melt me
my musk saturating your senses

your bones ache.
it is with love that I push
& pull the fibers of your undoing
stretch your consciousness to new lengths
winding & rewinding thoughts: feelings
every muscle memory
like a ray of sunshine
bursting through & into me

old souls
but we are still children
playful, inquisitive, experimental
age plays between us
our laughter, infectious
we remember those unfettered feelings
like they were yesterday
fifteen going on forty

*

Maureen said the number 8
is symbolic & infinite
eight years between us
the two of us plus six children equals 8
the 26th of March, 2013 our anniversary, equals 8
I will lock the car four more times for you baby
because two 4’s make an eight
we will have 40 years together too my darling

I have known you a lifetime.
everything about you is familiar, safe
your eyes are open
& I just keep falling into you
I love you more now
than this morning
but not as much as tomorrow –
I can hear you smiling in recognition

we are truly blessed
I am very happy
you are everything I could ever hope for
& then some
when I see your face,
watch your eyes lower for that split second
before holding my gaze, grinning
I know with all my heart, that you were meant for me

© Copyright 2013, Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved