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

Whore

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

The Bell Jar of Mixed Blessings

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

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

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

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