I’m only as good as my last poem, and that sucked a kumara.
So, why do I care what some hua thinks about me?
I’d rather kia kaha and hīkoi tóku mahi.
To stand strong and walk the talk.
It is what it is.
Ka kité ano apopo kurī.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
I’m not that kind of girl.
I am that kind of girl.
I can separate work and love.
I can’t separate work and love.
I know what I want.
I don’t know what I want.
Laughter and light.
Sadness and dark.
I don’t like one night stands.
I could like one night stands.
My heart is not for sale.
My heart is open for business.
I’m not a fuck buddy.
I could be a fuck buddy.
I am so much more.
I am all there is.
I want to be number one.
I don’t want to mean that much.
So I can learn to trust.
So I will never learn.
I don’t want to be second best.
I want to be what you want me to be.
I am worthy of love.
I am unworthy of love.
I want to be desired.
I don’t want to be desired.
I am a loving woman.
I am incapable of love.
I’m not an after-hours opportunity.
I am open all hours.
My time is precious.
My time is wasted.
I want to feel like I belong.
I don’t want to be here.
Not at someone’s beck and call.
On someone’s speed dial.
I’m not available for players.
I am available for everyone.
I have integrity.
I am immoral.
I want a partnership.
I don’t want a relationship.
Equality and compromise.
Selfishness and control.
I don’t want to feel alone.
I feel alone.
With or without.
Without or with.
I want to be independent.
I am co-dependent.
Choose my own lane.
Follow the leader.
I don’t want to settle.
I settle for much less.
When I deserve the best.
I don’t deserve any better.
I want to feel secure.
I feel trapped.
Relax and unwind.
Wound up like a spring.
I’m not someone’s distraction.
I am someone’s excuse.
Present not present.
Affect not effect.
I want to be happy.
I don’t want to feel good.
Spontaneously combust.
Slowly decay.
I don’t want to cry.
I want to smile.
No more tears for fears.
Lots of laughs and hope.
I want to be loved.
I am unloveable.
Expand my horizon.
Stay locked away.
I don’t want to be used.
I am a user.
I want a place to call ours.
I like my own space.
I can’t change who I am.
I could change if I wanted to.
I want it all.
I don’t want anything.
I am the kind of girl you take home.
I’m not the kind of girl you take home.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved
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
She fell for him.
She learned to feel ashamed.
Feelings; the dirty word for love, left her sitting in the dark on my balcony, stubbed out like a cigarette butt.
He had to go.
He learned to feel afraid.
Feelings; the Venus Flytrap of love, left him closing the door to my apartment, shut down like a stubborn ass mule.
Still.
Denial stole like a thief.
Feelings; think it would be easier to maintain a smile, but neither of them like bullshit or manipulation or lies.
…and I was starting to feel unencumbered until you came along, upping the anti with your sweet smile, ruining my bed, creating an arrhythmia of anomalies in my insulated penthouse.
…and I can see the headlights up ahead in the distance – high beams dip, then cut a trail through the darkness mimicking my lashes for you.
…and I think I’m ready? I think not, decide to ease back on the throttle; engine brake scream rebounding somewhere around midnight.
…and he says he’s not sure, but he wants to be King of the Mountain, the first to reach the top like Brock but without the fanfare.
…and his heart is in her hands. Headphones tapping out instructions driving himself around the bend while I wrestle with red eye and a juxtaposed stick/column shift.
…and we both get what we want. Safety nets and a pit crew who know the ropes better than any nightmare script or Greg Murphy wannabe.
…and all at once I become redundant. I can no longer see the warning signs and cats eyes through my windshield, except for tail lights.
…and you are leaving me behind. It’s time to open the windows and turn up Green Day and contemplate the waiting unknown. “Rage and love, the story of my life”.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
Green Day ‘Are We The Waiting’ YouTube
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 images of breasts and buttocks. His infrared eyes stir up his night vision.
© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved
My Corona
My Corona
Ooh my little dirty one, dirty one
When ya gonna give me that germ, Corona?
Ooh ya make my nose run, my nose run
Got it sliding down my lip line, Corona
Always blow my nose, wash my hands, do it all again
My, my, my, ay, ay, whoa!
M-m-m-my Corona
Come a little closer, huh, ah, will ya, huh
Close enough to give you my germs, Corona
Keeping it a mystery, conspiracy
Dripping from the edge of my eyes, Corona
Always blow my nose, wash my hands, do it all again
Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty germ
My, my, my, ay, ay, whoa!
M-m-m-my Corona
M-m-m-my Corona
My, my, my, my, my, my
My Corona
When ya gonna give it to me, give it to me
It’s just a matter of time
Corona
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Those days are over and my ❤️ is resigned.
Too many complications leave me questioning why.
I don’t bother putting my best foot forward.
I’d rather you saw me at my worst and most awkward.
There’s no point in trying anymore to be honest.
I’m too fucking angry to build rapport and flourish.
I don’t want a partner, I’m far too fucked up.
Finding friends is a challenge but that’s good enough.
You can lay it on thick and treat me sublime.
But I’m still gonna take myself home every night.
You just might really be the best thing for me.
But I’m too fucking burnt to begin to believe.
I’d rather push you away and self sabotage.
Than risk trusting you will be, who you say you are.
It’s wholly unfortunate and totally sad.
But I’ve had enough and it was pretty bad.
I like being independent, funky and fun.
I’m afraid to feel beautiful, desired and loved.
I feel myself falling and losing control.
And I fucking hate how it makes me withdraw.
But that’s how it is and for whatever it’s worth.
I think you’re ok but I’m still not so sure.
I don’t know what to do or even if I can try.
Regression takes me right back to being a child.
Then I reflect and feel all ashamed.
Knowing I’m being judged by myself and I blame.
I can feel the anxiety building up inside.
Leave me open, exposed and I lose my mind.
I’m completely imperfect, contemptible and flawed.
Selfish, self righteous and utterly scorned.
I don’t have what it takes to surrender my ❤️.
So let’s call it a day, while we can remember to laugh.
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
The iron asteroid hurtles past
Space dust — dark energy
Not the wind whistling sand storms,
Tidal wave anti — cyclones or
Harmless sun showers prevent
A near — miss tail spin
Where nothing can be done.
Superficial regolith and meteors
Disintergrate rock and pock — marks
Lightning scars part the urban clouds like seas
Where acid rains peel back
The layers of my molecules to dust
I can almost snap my fingers
To create a sound wave. My soul
Stratosphere churns watching you
Leave — plumes, fireworks park
Altered realities into multiple dimensions and
Wag their jagged fingers beaming us up
Like Scotty in the blink on an eye.
Flashes to snuff-out-the-light
Once and for all eternity astral
Travelling a barrel ride to infinity and
Beyond my dying plane, most
Inter — planetary extraordinary
Life. Don’t talk to me
About life — Lester harping on a song
About red dwarfs and the intergalactic space
Stations resounding radio frequency
Alien probing
My space time continuums white noise
Sending shock waves to run rings
Around any metallic meteors
Jet — propelled into my slip stream;
The birth of a worm or
Black hole inertia sucking it all in?
Only to return again, squeezed
Out and moulded by my doppleganger
Land and a star is born.
Super — nova core compressed
Dark matter, gas and fission
Fuse together my parts into a whole
Where nothing can be undone
And everything that ever was, is
Chasing her tail feather
An asteroid, full — speed ahead on a
Magnetic collision course
Forcing fields and gamma rays to
Deflect decay once again,
While shit storms still rain down and
Charged particles and isotopes ping.
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
I see right through everything you try to impress upon me.
My nose is already cut/off, my mask forever cast into the pantomime of the dead.
When I rise,
I won’t need you.
∆
There are no wallflowers here,
just silent observers casing the joint.
My grandfather’s spyglass has a cracked lens — one of those monocled, steampunky brass edged gems that’s uncoordinated at best but it serves more than a purpose.
Without you, I fade into the background.
∆
I am like a mage.
I draw you in, but you beckon me out from behind my crystal pillars dangling wads of money and a job offer that’s on hold.
I come baring more than just my breasts,
I am yours.
∆
Till the thrill is gone.
I am in danger of succumbing to my own spell, rebounding long before
I am discarded,
when you’ve already moved on to Nightingales and page three nostalgia, my unnatural incantations losing their spark along the way.
Still, you make me question where I belong.
∆
I stand in the orange sunset smoking a durry on my balcony, looking down from my lofty thoughts.
My high society, contemptible self-loathing boldly framing my red-hinged double revolving doors that would swing wider — if it weren’t for the sunstrike that has me
blind.
∆
A spectral shade
of surreal light,
trapped by my own
shadowban.
∆
I see right through everything you try to impress upon me.
My nose is already cut/off, my mask forever cast into the pantomime of the dead.
When I rise,
I won’t need you.
© Copyright 2020, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. 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
Last night was a true clusterfuck.
This morning, she’s thinking about taking a class
Act.
Flashbacks of a child making desperate promises she can’t keep
Pray.
She learned there was no one who really cared
Naked.
A victim of conditioned responses or lack thereof killing Heidi off
Halo.
Inextricably separate, forever grieving the loss of her
Forgiveness.
When all it takes is to swallow it down whole and roll
Die.
Does she know how much it hurts?
© 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 proffering 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 bearing down
Bends 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 beating
Force 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
1.
People are orchids; cunts in disguise, and my tongue is already licking their splendid protruding lips like schnapps.
I’ve behaved like an orchid before – all puffed up and pouty, making holier-than-thou statements before those dreadful chinese lanterns have me boxed in, their crude hypnotic swagger acting like a prayer.
People are indeed orchids, complete with parasites and annoying bitey insects that sting and suck their way into our folds like thrips; bugs spreading their shit everywhere.
But who cares?
Give me Derris Dust any day, thrips have no feelings and orchids are such selfish sluts!
How dare they open their sub-waxy petals and assault my precious beliefs, forcing me to question my disease!
How dare they splay those wanton colours around willy nilly, when I really want to rub their ruddy faces in it!
After all, too much free love can only encourage lust, can’t it?
Lanterns are a much more suitable display of proliferation. Pyrethrum perfume is so underrated, isn’t it?
Fertilizer certainly brings us all down to earth sooner or later.
2.
Get plucked orchid!
I try my very best not to behave like an orchid. I try even harder to walk away from those flowering displays of tall poppy syndromes, but they tease me.
I try not to react to orchids if I can help it, preferring to turn the other leaf however, like all flowering displays, it would seem that misandry is misplaced.
The stupidity of self serving dwarf hybrids is ridiculed by other orchids, who would rather still remain an orchid in full bloom.
Orchids are not perfect!
If orchids could project all my vindictive hatred towards other orchids, turning them all into a mere arrangement, I’d at least have a chance at self love.
Oh wait – I touch myself all the time!
What was I thinking? To hell with orchids having their own way, I prefer to deal with other orchid varieties whom feel cajoled into behaving like real orchids!
As far as I’m concerned, its your orchidy choice, not mine.
Same goes for feeling indignation when calla lilies become offended!
Life will always be a red hot poker if you let an orchid get to you.
Poor little victimy poor me lantern. I’m so plucking ‘offended’ by you – boo-fucking-hoo!
Heaven forbid I might have to consider taking responsibility for my own lustful thoughts!
3.
Never try to enlighten a lantern when they don’t believe they have been or are behaving like a plucked orchid!
They’ll end up sitting on you, pouring pyrethrum from a half empty cup all over your splendid bloom, convincing you that their pollen is justified.
Typical perpetrator behaviour with an overwhelming sense of entitlement.
I attract orchids like flies, never mind the thrips. I’m finally learning to recognise the subtle difference.
One sucks the life out of you, while the other annoys the fuck out of you!
4.
Of course I’m going to pick on you when all I hear are wasps!
I dont care if it wilts your stem! I dont care if it makes me the pair of secateurs for hurting your feelings!
I’ve picked, I’ve been plucked and I don’t accept cuts any more.
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Clock app, I chime well.
The sheets are slithery crevices
Satin-lined, with serpent tongue poised to strike,
It is a meeting of the soul,
A shaft of light
Through cathedrals of stained glass.
Where you are safe,
Where there are no family heirlooms,
No dinner on the table, no lies.
Suave virile hips, the smirk of men
Glaze at her smoke
And I, in my honeyed plume,
Milk a gallon of amphibian seed.
To release
The roar of angst I swallow toads ~
Meat and three vege, a staple,
The ‘Elixir of Life’.
My mouth gags,
The mouth of Mary
When my accelerator touches the pan.
The giggle of my
Plastic features, my way of arching
Johns to rigors of trapeze
Lays on the charm, a gasp.
And it goes on and on, and on.
I shall remain a nymph. Old muscles
Strain like a bough and I
Blush like Betty Boop
Satisfied,
All the sighs of winter, fall
Offering up last seasons rosella
Tea to read.
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Appropriated from Sylvia Plath’s ‘Gigolo’, 29 January 1963, Collected Poems, 1981
Tinder dating.
Balancing on that tight rope between modern meat markets, vintage marriage proposals and a continuum of taffeta excuses for those with no idea about couture.
Coffee date number two,
torn between a Trelise Cooper bustle or Collette Dinnigan trousers, opting for mid length K-mart culottes and flat shoes – quite sensible really.
Then he makes a move, casually stroking her genius arm while he takes a business call leaning back on his wing.
It’s an affront to Cora’s touch-starved senses colliding like electrons; Georgette raised speed bumps bristle with expectations.
Its awkward for a moment –
deciding weather to pirouette or sashay onto the dancefloor with some spurious home truths.
Ta da!
‘I used to be a sex worker’ she crowed, sipping on a nonchalant eyelash latte on the verge of treason ‘and if I decide to go back, you can’t stop me’.
Silence.
Ms Pearl takes another sip, the onslaught of ignorance threatening to tighten her whale bone corset breath, now held in contempt.
A standing ovation or white knuckled finale taking the bias edge out of contention, taking it all in.
See, she can’t see the point of another round of ruffles and rouge.
/
Spontaneous attraction hides in the shadows
of a cloak and dagger past life, frightened
by a mere unorthodox interlude.
© Copyright 2019, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
“Everybodies doing some sort of haberdashery; feathered costumes & hand sewn labours of love” JD Butler
My monkey man swings through the tunes, 1920’s in psychedelic vibes, moving through astral bodies & trombones, his strumpets shaking everything they’ve got; getting on up, you getting down with the sickness while my Cheshire lights up the room like Charleston
Everybodies doing some sort of haberdashery; feathered costumes & hand sewn labours of love, more broken heart’s than I care to imagine, myself weaving supersystems & stars into eternity while you belt out Orions tune like a demon possessed!
Even Club Reservoir served more frivolity than a mere gin & tonic this time; our Queen having a place to shine, the turquoise scene in sequins wore more hearts than Bombays’ Sapphire – our grand parade my finale, coming home on a backbeat
*
You may as well be a gay icon my pretty, but it aint got no swing & I hate myself for being so mean to you
© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved
Photographer Renk Renk Resimler
Yellow; traditionally the colour of death
Yellow roses in particular
Yellow, reminds me of my step-daughter
Yellow is also the colour of grief
the colour of cowardice and cowboy’s
jaundice and Nicorette
Lemons leave a bad taste in my mouth
Yellow. Not one of my favourite colours
First published on Far North Fiction
© Copyright 2017, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved
