White Fella Clock

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Emuford, Queensland, Australia
The long, winding road on
Patrol, dips diving
Over causeways corrugation;
Raised shuddering asides,
Rusty Savannah on
The back seat
Of bumfuck nowhere
Up, at Emuford.
A place to escape —
Convictions congregate
Over blackberry gin & tonic,
Chivas & beer
No white fella clock here.
Emuford, Queensland, Australia
Blue Rosella's, Scarlet Wren
Yellow Wattle &
Black boys eye the Brim
Full of asher & cast iron
Termite ochre.
Abandoned outposts
Spike the road
Like Milligan & we take
Only what we need;
Elder pleas & healing,
Wild Rivers offering up
Sooty Grunter
No white fella clock here.
Sooty Grunter (Black Brim)
Hidden in the heather
Quartz & granite,
An old bottle of
'Bygone Era'
Just under the surface
A century or so ago.

Ironbark & bracken
Stoke the charred embers where
Lightening strike
Cackles & laughter swaggers;
Dreaming voices
Carry on the wind
No white fella clock here.
Emuford, Queensland, Australia
Temperate waters, the ego
Juggles a few balls &
Just right airs & graces
Make her presence known.
Layers, removed one by one
Begin to lift.
Red dog sleeps in the fire.
Rat dog learns to swim.
Pork sausage bread butties on
Stomach lined spastic gullets
Take the piss &
March flies land bite
No white fella clock here.
Cobb & Co Outpost, Emuford

© Copyright 2023, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved

The Joker

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The Joker
plays his cards then prays
for forgiveness
to a middle eastern Christian God
before hurling abuse
to those who aren’t white
professing to love women
secretly harbouring unfathomable hate
suppressed rage
staring Red indifference in the face
of reason, his reason
an excuse for payback; vindictive
retribution designed to maximize
powerfully charged emotional punches.

I have loved more than once
choosing my heart over head
batting eyelids deflecting
eggs scrambling to make sense
of the impossible scenario
time after time questioning
my self refusing to settle for anything
less than truth
watching loved ones turn
roll over, pulling the wool
over already unseeing orbs
holding on to contempt for love
lost

Death has defined me
grief ripping me apart
till I am stripped bare and
‘The Joker’ plays me for a fool
his denial hardly concealed now
his truth defining him in the end
hidden underneath a facade
charm dangerously like a predators
false sense of security
when his hands are tied
his dirty hands
he tries to launder abrasive
repeatedly.

Money
the root of all evil
threatens to ignite the paper trails
that have us entwined
enmeshed together by banks
loans and fine print
our future only leased
the balance drains the half full cup
sentiment caught never to be released
that Holy Grail
proving to be forever out of reach
what chance did we have?
the die has been cast.

My love
my darling
you were my everything
my beautiful sweet illusion
my heart aches for remembering you
how you were before you changed colour
I fell head over feet for you and yours
grazing my knee in the process
I succumbed, numbing my defenses
getting back up being pushed back down
losing another fragment of hope
each time threatening don’t
now, the joke is on you.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved

Illusion

Craving

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I’m craving you, today.

All those beautiful things about you
that glittered like gold; your face,
a ray of fucking sunshine
portending our future
happiness, growing old together.

I crave to see your smile, fall
about the place laughing.

I look back through photographs,
those ones on the balcony
encapsulating you against a green backdrop
when we were ecstatic, tripping
over our good fortune pleasured to meet,
makes me weep now.

I loved you so much it’s unbearable
witnessing our demise.

I chastise my foolishness,
choosing to believe in love – you,
I would do anything to turn back time,
start over knowing what we know now,
hold on to that part of us
that was true, before

reality ripped me a new one
and I belly flopped into despair.

My eyes search for you everywhere,
in my rearview
to steal a glance, catch a glimpse
to see if you remember me, re-ignite
one final psychic spark
awakening those butterflies.

I don’t want the dawn to sing to me.
I long to dream rainbows and fairy floss

instead of axe handles / switch blades
cutting off my head,
dismembering my brain stem
from my heartbeat for you.
Some days I look for ways I can feel,
my fingers frantic

without prying ears interfering
and I ride you into rhythm; doublets

triplets and fours
before I stare transfixed
into the silent night – did you feel anything?
I don’t like this, nastiness unbecoming
it’s not how I want to remember you
but it’s all you’ve ever known.

It’s not too late to salvage respect
putting it all down to folly, our hurt

doesn’t need to scar, on par
with adolescent angst.
I love all those who have gone before
each finding that special place
lodged in the spaces between
the good, the bad and the ugly.

Forgive me, for I will in time; make
it all worthwhile.

I want you to be happy,
successful and content.
Please don’t fall back into line,
choosing thugs for pittance —
you’re worth more than pseudo security
it’s all bullshit, that old way.

You are made for enlightenment
not eternal darkness.

I still love you the way I remember you,
I just don’t believe in the Devil.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved

Blossom

Malady Peg

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Artist: Unknown

You build a picture of me
outside the elongated square
peg shaped box
I find myself circling.

Each single step
widens following
two side steps lengthening
nearly five decades deep —

before I’m back in the shit
standing in front of the same scale
stained window or solid oak door
or Samsung S4.

My self imposed barricade
chain and key close
to my heart keep-safe
trusting no one

except a chain gang
of miscreants and misfits
mulling over life, just right.
Subliminal messages

only those in the know can
decipher; wisdom in code, words
biting off more than we can chew
at times, like these.

You help build a picture of me
outside the elongated square
peg shaped box
I find myself picking apart

with my fingernails, prying
into cracks like an
unsuspecting little upstart
who has everything and nothing.

We are social creatures
by nature, nurture featuring ways
to stray outside our four walls
where I space out

dependent distance, my avoidance
keeps my heart still beating.
Any attempt to heal is an affront
my demons wreck havoc,

threaten to cut me off at the knee’s
if I don’t conform or dance
to the pipers tune. My malady
freaks the hell out of everyone.

Torture held captive.

You are a picture of my self
outside my elongated square
peg shape box, my reason
to die respectfully

circumnavigating
ways through and around,
bashing my head up
against invisible walls

that thwart my existence
here, questions unanswered
philosophical paradoxical paradigm s;
the meaning of life and death.

I want to go home,
listen to the ebb and flow
of waves, seagulls and the sound
of sand crunching between my toes

and decide to live.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’. All Rights Reserved

Farce

Set Fire

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I’ve been living in a war zone.

So it seems, three and a half years
of Hell with nothing left
to show for it,
except heartache
and pain
watching love leach
from my soul; phosphorescent,
sparks like spheres float up, up
and away to fizzle out
in to nothingness.

Since when did I become
the enemy?

Clumped into the annuls of misogyny
tarred / scarred
for being a woman empowered
because I threaten the old ways
where women were barefoot
and pregnant,
swathed in floral aprons
with floured hands kneading
wholesome Madonna complexes
designed to subdue.

I love

depth and passion
moving my heart to where I am
mesmerized in awe; my fragile smile
let loose like an arrow
straight and true into you
and I, jubilant
where I am left wondering
where you have been
all my life – that I would
do anything for you.

I love my self more,

and I am not broken completely.
I can take those looks of contempt
along with those cutting words
and stand my ground against interrogation/subjugation
I lead myself in cycles, navigating
my way out of ear shot for a while
till I can stand it no more,
when I hide away inside
and stuff my fingers.

All is not lost,

despite my sense of guilt at not being
strong enough in your eyes,
unlike grandma whom you adored,
admiring resilience
I am merely a shade by comparison
if I subscribed to your anger and hurt
if I took her on and became
a better person, wife, mother for you
if only I chose to keep my mouth shut
like she learned in the war.

I don’t believe

staying silent will keep us alive
these days. Life requires I fight
for truth, freedom, rights and for love
so you may find your self, lifted from those ashes – Dachau, and understand that women need
tenderness, a kindness that takes away
the hurt of injustices, finding safety
your arms filling me with hope
that I am not alone.

It is with great sadness

that I must choose love,
letting go the innocence of youth
and embrace my own mortality
if I am to be a survivor.
I cannot condone atrocities
of any kind and turn a blind eye
without losing that part of myself
that wanted to die, finding respect
in being true to myself
Lest We Forget.

I am mourning

a life of trials and tribulations
that had me in tears for the most part.
My heart is broken, I no longer believe
in you, us – I am setting fire to the 3rd mar
closing my eyelids on my dreams
facing those feelings
I have been too afraid to feel
reaching in to pull them out
into the open and lay myself bare
so I can finally heal.

Goodbye my love,

we will all be OK.

Puncture

Snow Patrol

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler. ‘Poetry Out West’, All Rights Reserved

Lady Lazarus & the Voice of Ratified Reason

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“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

Working through Cobwebs

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Melbourne Street Art – Artist Unknown
Photographer: Jennifer Cox
Photo used with permission

I’m trying to work through cobwebs, he said,

with eyes pouring like rain
into a leaky boat
squaring off the shoreline
heading out to sea
avoiding Redbacks
like the plague
negotiating rogue waves
behind his back
facing his fear; ex
tended arms pull
away — escape
for a moment.

He scans the horizon
left to right that sinking
feeling farther, closer
than he expected denial; a river
too far away to row a thunder clap
into eternity
Isis turning a blind eye
Triton drags him
under, spinning
a vortex only Terra
firma can translate.

Taking the bull
by the horns he finds
solid ground wrestling
knee deep in mud that sticks
like shit on the inside,
cobwebs cling to hard
wired neurons
lodged in the gaps
in between grey,
a matter for the black
and white.

Separate facts find
fiction fornicating
in a web of deceit
by design, too lurid
for children like
Persephone – abducted
innocence; a metaphor
for rape choking the Hell
out of life, all the while
pseudo affection bribes
a handful of lollies
to sweeten the blow.

I want everything to be saved,
he said.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’. All Rights Reserved

Notorious

Astral Dissociation & the Unattainable Cryogenic Pathway to the Stars

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“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

There is Nothing Special about Mary

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Photographer: Judith Bender-Jura

1.

Mary, the one without
a Halo — a married whore,
found unconditional love
hiding in the soles of His feet.

After the fact that
pseudo relationships
took precedence for a while,
she washed Him clean

for no other reason
than to show respect, reverence
for one that would give
His soul for her.

2.

My feet are bare, scarred
by broken beer bottles & red
blood paint tips to toes,
manicured to perfection once

upon a time. His feet
are cold; numbness held in a vice-like
grip as she works her way up
past calves & quads seeking

warmth in the apex comfort
sucking a thumb print, embedded
ecstasy applying pressure
where it hurts, to ease the pain.

3.

She thinks the sun shines.
Cradling his head, healing hands
mindful of circular breathing, muscles & tendons ache for release.

Mary doesn’t mind manipulating
bones, fingering the spaces
in between, redirecting blood flow
to all the right places. Kneading,

stretching & burns ping back, send signals like sparks; endorphins
take up the slack, usher in sweet
sensation & nipples peek.

There’s nothing special about Mary
knowing a thing or two,
making money serving more than a handful of life’s little pleasures. Making hay while the sun

shines requires little effort on her part, preferring to let it slide
up past the point of no return. Those days over now
before they really took hold.

4.

Mary looks at him spent, kinesthetic
energy on standby as he reconsiders
where he stands. The party’s over,
someone has to clean up, Mary

learning to love the hand
that feeds her, wishing sometimes
for independence and silence, in
between phone calls. Those days

over now, up for tender for the next
wave of youthful antagonists who seek an existence unbeholden. Love
knows no rules of engagement.

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’. All Rights Reserved

Impression

Oh No!

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Atlas Justice & Dad (Matthew William Haylock)

Oh no! thought Atlas,

Looking at the mess.

Oh no! says Dad,

Not this again.

Nappy fluff is everywhere

There is no end

All over the carpet

In Atlas’ hair!

Oh no! says Mama J,

What is going on?

There’s fluff on the patio,

There’s fluff on the floor,

There’s fluff on the bed,

And there’s fluff on the walls!

There was no end

To the fluff Atlas caused.

A confetti of fluff

Had kept Atlas amused

He’d forgotten about other stuff

That he could be doing,

Like playing with Looby

Or arranging his toys

Or watching his iPad

And listening to noise.

Instead he made carnage

A world full of fluff!

Oh no! thought Atlas,

I think I’ve f*cked up!

Oh no! says Dad,

Ready to scold

Oh no! says Mama J,

Looking forlorn.

In the meantime, Atlas

Had sneaked out the back!

He’d snuck up the stairs

While they sorted it out!

He picked up his iPad

Plonked down on his chair

Grabbed a handful of crackers

Threw them in the air!

A squeal of happiness

Burst out from his mouth.

Oh no! exclaimed Dad,

Where’s Atlas now?

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

Endings

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Set It Free

I don’t like endings.

I’d rather switch off
Nod and agree,
Even when it’s bullshit.

I don’t like the drama.

I’m a set-it-free kinda gal—
If it comes back
It was meant to be.

We all have to figure it out for ourselves.

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

The Slow Toll Bell

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Illaru at Night

I am dying.

My bones leach, ache

In my catatonic state and my mind

Drifts skew-whiff, a vagabond pilgrimage

Across the Never Never astral plain.

Final destination riding slipstreams and moon beams

To infinity beyond nightmares

Passing through spectre

Through astro fields

(wrought iron cages)

Through Aeon.

I am bed bound, Catholicism eyeing my orphan crib

Lined with soggy biscuits and cheap red wine

Remnants of a past life

Neglect, emaciated limbs distended malnutrition

Wormholes in my solar plexus

Infiltrating dessert.

I can see small babies kick—

Dung beetle’s all legs, flat on their back’s

Only half way there.

The slow toll bell calls my body, anchor

Illaru strained against the silver tide

Subsidence destined to reside

In Long Beach under night sky,

Piece meal.

Condor tempt me to stray

Death wish incubus prey,

I pray to an unknown Goddess in my final hour

She comes like Madonna,

Mary Magdalene leven Ishtar

And all I can do is wait

To be held in her warm arms.

I am dying.

My bones leach, ache

In my catatonic state

In my mind’s eternal damnation.

Eternal Damnation

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Holy Pizza

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Judas tosses my skin dough

kneading

Spread too thin

Wood fire burnt, ends

Encrusted mounds & blisters

Slough

fall

Tears another hole &

I become a meal;

A tv dinner deal.

At the last supper, Mary

Sings a hymn &

All the Angel’s

rejoice!

My veil lifted drifts

Chewed fingertips boxed in

Swallowed whole, followed by

An after-dinner mint & toothpick.

But what I really need is a good

stretch.

© Copyright 2022, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler. All rights reserved

Last Mile Home

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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

Strangers

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It was like meeting a stranger.

That uncomfortable feeling of awkward recognition and detachment — that made me want to run least I fall apart, reveal my core which you saw, reflected back at you between glimpses.

That unspoken knowing.

I felt the push of energy and the pull of old habits back into regression, back into the familiar comfort zone of old where nothing changes and we both die a little bit more inside and destiny forgets to reset.

I’m wondering if we’re humble enough to surrender, strong enough to become vulnerable long enough to push through the sparks, ignite the fire and transform pain into passion so we can both decide to rise.

We dance as if we’re going nowhere but in reality, we are already somewhere. Somewhere untapped, viscerally raw and undeniably on the edge of something far greater than either of us anticipated of love.

I want us to push through.

We are free falling to unknown depths and still creating marble pillars from blind faith alone, to eck out an existence that illuminates the veils so we can both find freedom in enlightenment.

All we need to do is walk through the door and let go of the past once and for all and finally fall completely and utterly in love where nothing else matters, except us.

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

I Am

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Lifting the Second Veil

I am

The High Priestess
Lifting the Second Veil

I am grieving

That I am
Invisible

That I am
Denied
Used & abused
Wounded

That I am
Powerful

That I am
Spiritual
Magnetic
Eternal

That I am
Goddess

That I am
The Medicine Woman
The Artisan &
The Determinatress

I am healing
My Akashic DNA

I Am

Akashic DNA

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

My Delirium

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My Delirium

My thoughts are a jumbled mess of confusion (yours, his, hers & mine) scrying for something to hold onto long enough to make sense of the anchors and foundations we’ve both forged from pain, which now threaten to cave in. There is nothing I can do but watch. You are the man. My dreams and cracked beams are giving way to violence — detachment and oblivion. Nothing will be left but a fully loaded house of teetering cards.

All I feel is loss.

The aftermath will have me face to face with Charon. He sits upon my chest now, opening up my third eye bidding me to say goodbye one last time. My soul declines, offering suffering in silence, compassion finding release in a steady stream and I overflow. My ears make wells to muffle his bargain but I belong to no one, not even him. I am a lost cause.

If I accept, demons could still tear me apart, dismember my appendages piece by bloody piece before sewing me back together skew-whiff, over and over again until I am utterly insane. Therein lies the abyss. The place that makes my life a living hell and all my heart aches for, is to love and be loved.

But all I feel is sadness.

Abandonment caves in my ribcage too. It digs in like a tick underneath my lungs and sucks every last drop of fluid left from my life. I am wrung out and strung out, so I waste no time in knocking myself out just to get lost — I wander in the ether to find her again and bring her back home but there is always a catch.

Twenty two foregone conclusions reek of tyranny. You can’t save me! I was lost before you found me and I don’t belong to you or them or here or anywhere and it will always be like this! I don’t want to believe in angels! I don’t want to believe in demons! I don’t want to live in this place!

There is another outburst of pain.

I seek comfort in my magic, my wand set to low creates slow circles that mimick your gentle touch. I feel pleasure for the first time since I last felt your gaze reach in to pull me out and into your Temple. You try to worship my foreign body, send ripples ricocheting between our vibrations but we have failed to find synchrony. In my delirium, I think I must have died.

All I feel now is grief.

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

Ether Box

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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

Kraken Nemesis

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Worry, picking apart my brain, forms tentacles & infiltrates the darkness demolishing barriers discarding all sense of reason.

Fear, prys open the latch & pokes it’s ugly noggin out amongst folded loops, sensing freedom & an opportunity to breed.

I recoil; form more sunken chests & box in my indignation, push it back down subterranean & throw away the key.

I threaten to rip the legs off my giant colossal squid if she doesn’t do as she’s told!

My kraken nemesis.

That self entitled bitch, sticks her beak in where it doesn’t belong!

I square off, walk the grid like an executioner plans strategy & make the first move.

I am flawed. No better than humanity subdues & ignites.

I feel ashamed
I feel ashamed
I feel ashamed

Finding my place, my people & my self taking an age to surface.

I can’t make head or tails of it.

I float, drift around in the ether, neither up or down — threads like silk ferry me away. Is this what it’s like to crack?

Psychicly split down the middle.

One half tending the earth, grows old gracefully, wears away the lines to paint a picture. The other chips away at my sanity like a termite.

She is mad. A lost cause. A first world problem searching for a third world solution, juxtaposes sense.

I don’t know if I’m any good at treading water. She’s drowning.

I think I’m gonna crack.

Who is there for me?

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

Limbo Suffragette

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Limbo

Isolation
Lonliness

Altruistic tendencies.

A real man looks after his woman.

Builds up hope
Says all the right things

Means what he says
Does what he means.

Love.

Means nothing if it’s bullshit.

Is he going to break me?
Is he breaking me?

Old habits?

Does he want me to leave?
Could I leave?

Would I keep coming back?

Hurting me
Being hurt

Loving you
Being loved.

What is magic?

Where do I belong?

Destiny.

Who is there for me?
Who is there for you?

How long do I wait for what exactly –
Love, security, money, both?

Hibernation.

Am I discarded?

Be like water.

Do I belong here yet?

A limbo suffragette.

A caregiver.

Am I just a caregiver?

He doesn’t want me for that.
What does he want me for?

Companionship.
Am I expected to be faithful?
Am I enough?

Convenience
A means to an end?
I’m not sure what he wants.

Friendship.
Am I on the market?
I’m not sure I’m available.

Marriage.
Will I accept the contract?
Do I really belong here?

I want a partner.

He needs a wife

Wants a legacy.

More children?

Hanging by a thread
Dangling on a ledge.

Friend, enemy, lover, acquaintance.

Loving.

Leaving?

Family, security
Money, happiness

Asking for nothing
Expecting something.

Dignity.

Respect.

Honour.

Am I worthy?
Is he worth it?

Will he build me up?
Bring me down?

Take me on?
Walk away?

Why does he want me?

What did he get?
What am I taking?

What did I get?
What is he taking?

Just roll with it.

Wait for nothing.

Be grateful for everything.

The Devils’ going to make me rich.

I don’t have to worry.

We’re all in it for something.

Yet you offer me everything & nothing.

I just want to love and be loved.

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