Afterlife

(Picture - Crystalline Turquoise Lake, China)

This poem is a tribute to two legends of the Triond writing website, the recently late Most Popular Article and the stricken Mnofdichotomy. They worked together on the notorious Banksy project. Duff D Moss directed me to a website on spirituality which sparked off my story called Long Sleep, and now this.

They say there is a world that stands beside our own.

We cannot see it ‘til we pass on through that wall

‘Tween Life and Death.

Once there we are restored to what we were

At twenty five.

All ills removed to leave us all in perfect health.

There is no hell nor heaven waiting there for us,

No punishment for sins committed through our lives.

Nor golden pavements flanking diamond streets

For those who have been “good”.

Yet call this Heaven if you will.

What’s in a name I have to ask.

Let’s call them Angels who live there.

They watch our struggles through this Earthly life.

On passing some will even go

To their own funeral.

It’s said this nether-world is made of spheres

One atop the other

Through which you rise as you “mature”

In a spiritual sense.

All Angels work together

Just learning what they can:

And growing to a higher plane.

All this is said,

By many round the world.

My Hope

Is that

They’re right.

Paul Butters

(C) PB 15\8\2011 in Yorkshire at 15.20.

Source of inspiration - Duff D Moss who directed me to:

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter29.html

A Poem

Often I think and write about a certain question: "Just What is Poetry?" Sometimes I even write a poem about poetry, like this one:

A poem, to me:

A statement, speech, a view.

Onomatopoeic metaphor

About me and you.

Plotted and planned,

Or just a thing I do.

From instress to inscape,

Hopkins-like,

So very, very true.

A riotous myriad of colours,

Scented roses,

Touches new.

In verses and stanzas,

Pocket pictures you see;

Iambic rhythms and pulses,

Traditional verses,

Or free.

Time for tea.

Paul Butters

Or Skryboss (C) Yorkshire Dales Saturday 19th September 2009 at 11.30.

MMM. Skryboss - one of my efforts at a pseudonym. Ah well. Do feel free to comment below. Do scroll down to see my earlier entries, including "Older Posts". Better still, do pop back later. Poetry is to be savoured slowly... And I keep adding poems...

12\9\2012: This poem has had 224 Views to press on "Hello Poetry". That makes it my most popular poem on there. "New Eden" is challenging fast however.

New Eden

This is my latest poem. Last month I challenged a Triond writer calling herself "Momofplenty" to write a poem on "Outer Space". She responded, very well, and provoked me to write something myself. Had to change my proposed title, as I'd used it before. Here it is:

We seek another Mother Earth,

Another Planet Plenty:

A World within a Goldilocks Zone,

Snuggled up

Where everything’s just right.

Out there we gaze,

High in the sky,

Up amongst those swirling nebulae.

See those galaxies twirl,

As gas-clouds spawn new stars.

Supernovae die

To be reborn

As clouds of suns

And Planets.

Countless Billions of Worlds

All waiting

To be explored.

Paul Butters

© 13\7\2012 in Humberside.

Don't be afraid to Comment, folks!

PS 9\9\12: Posted this on "Hello Poetry" and got 127 Views (to press!). On their "Trending" list.

12\9\12: 208 Views on HP to press. Now my 2nd most popular poem there to "A Poem".

Excitement

My head feels dull.

Not even “comfortably numb”.

No mood for rhyme

Yet must cast my soul

Back through time.

No.

No more rhyme.

Just cast my mind back.

Seek that spark.

Call out my Muse.

Be inspired.
Excited.

Yes.

Excitement shines

Like a billion suns.

The merest touch

Explodes

My every nerve.

Magical mysteries

Unveil themselves.

Brilliant, fluttering butterflies

Flash and flicker

Those rainbow colours and more.

Deep inspiration.

Adrenaline rush.

Electrical discharge.

Cascading sweat.

Thunder-drummed tornadoes.

Lightning storms.

Rose tinged dawns,

And silver-ghosted Moons.

Inspirational volcanoes

Of Muse-blown delight.

That’s how it was,

To be in Love.

Paul Butters

© PB  Humberside 6\10\2010.Finished 13.20.New first stanza added 20\10 by 22.40.

Inspiration

A more modern one. In recent times most of my poems have emerged in Long Lee, Keighley, on the fringe of The Dales. (I visit my sister, her hubby and my mum there). THIS one was written in Cleethorpes however:

Inspire me to aspire.

To fulfil my every desire.

Come down you Muses.

Swoop low from Mount Olympus.

Fill me with your blazing fire.

Make me rise like a Phoenix,

Soaring aloft with burnished wings.

Give me a vision

Of Heavens paved with gold.

Let me see palaces

Carved from diamonds

Made in Neptune’s

Molten core.

Blind me with a light

So fearsome

I can barely look.

Show me infinity,

Eternal bliss.

Make me feel

A boundless Love.

Well,

What are you waiting for?

Paul Butters

© 9\11\2011 in Humberside, on laptop.

Frenetic Genetics

As a teenager at school in the late 1960s I recall reading an article on the new Genetic Engineering. It described how a man could be crossed with an oak tree! Not long afterwards I wrote a positive poem about a golden future, genetically engineered.

Since then, of course, GE has had some very bad press. People are terrified of it! For sure, there must be dangers. Whole ecosystems could be destroyed by one mistake. So, acknowledging my earlier naivety I wrote a more balanced poem, "Frenetic Genetics". I see it as an "ideas" poem. Keats and Shelley can sleep easy: no fine imagery attempted here.

Actually the poem has been very popular on the internet. A biology teacher in California even advocated its use in lessons on genetics! I was quite honoured by that. Here it is:

Genetic engineering’s here to stay

Possibilities are endless, scientists say:

Men mixed with anything we can find:

Oak trees, wasps, ants and elephants combined.

Satanic horror armies sweep their enemies away

And Frankenstein’s monster’s but child’s play

Compared with this lot.

Yet with Good intent,

And wisdom heaven sent,

Utopia or Paradise could be on its way:

Bumper bug-free harvests every day,

Giant fruit and docile, friendly beasts.

Food for all, and endless feasts.

All manner of

Good

Or Evil

Is within

Our grasp.

It’s down to us.

Paul Butters  (W) and (C) 26\4\2008. Word erased 11\7\2011.

(There was originally a word "little" after "monster's").

Comments appreciated. Do please scroll down for earlier entries.

Hubble

(Picture from NASA)

This is a more "modern" poem of mine, on a favourite topic: Space. I was most honoured when Sonnet Mondal accepted it for his specialist blog, "Enchanted Verses" - a high quality site. My younger nephew Phil once featured the poem on his Facebook profile. Again Forward Press accepted it for "Spotlight Poets". Here it is:

Above our Earth so high

The Hubble telescope now hangs

Beyond our vault-like sky:

An all embracing eye;

Now showing us the universe

In all her glory.

Those swirling galaxies give way to seemingly endless

Tracts of quasars, dust and gas.

Through Hubble we look back through time,

At remnants of the Big Bang:

The Birth, they tell us, of Creation,

That might be repeated,

Over and over again.

Yet, before this satellite was launched,

Or telescopes invented,

Just what did humans know?

What did the Aztecs know of England,

Or fourteenth century English folk know of America?

As technological advances have

Been swift, so our state of ignorance

Has been revealed for all to see.

For no-one knows The Purpose of Life.

     Why?

   Oh Why!

Do We Live

   To Die

     Why?

For we will Die

Not Knowing Why.

Ask Christ they say, 

He’ll show The Way.

Ask God and He will too.

Ask Allah, Buddha,

Anyone you like;

And Me, I’ll tell you just to Hope,

For Love will see us through.

Paul Butters

© COPYRIGHT PAUL BUTTERS AUGUST 1997.

 Accepted for publication 1997 by “Spotlight Poets\Forward Press” for book “A Storm of Perceptions”. Also on “The Enchanting Verses” website by invitation and posted on poemhunter.com and Voicesnet.com (all 2008).)

Nowadays I usually post new poems on "Triond" site first, as they demand exclusives and no "duplicates". Then I put them on Poemhunter and Voicesnet. My very best go on "Hello Poetry". Some go on Poetfreak etc.

You will see that my earlier poem-posts on this blog are lower down here. Please scroll down to see. Comments appreciated.

Hello Reader

(Picture of me at work taken by a colleague)

This poem was written in the 1990s so is relatively "modern". Really it should have introduced this blog I suppose but hey.... Here it is:

My dearest reader, seconds ago, before your

Decision to turn the page, there was nothing.

These very words were hidden away and thus

Unseen, to all intents did not exist:

Just like the beauty of the Jovian Moons

`Til “Voyager” beamed those pictures back to Earth.

For You have brought this page to life - yes You and only You!

You bring along a wealth of memories of your own,

Your feelings, thoughts, regrets and sorrows, joys

And fears, your hopes and fantasies.

You have the mountains of your mind:

Your personal rivers, clouds and suns: flowers and gasometers!

Landscapes, dreams and nightmares of your very own.

And me, as you sit reading this, I might be with you right now,

Dead and buried, or maybe miles away.

To you I give the role of God: to breathe your life upon this page.

Take you away, dear reader, and there’s nothing: formless void.

Yet now, together, you may join me, in a realm

Where Life, though challenged by Evil,

Is warded by our Love.

PAUL BUTTERS

© COPYRIGHT PAUL BUTTERS 1997. Accepted for publication 1997 in “The Star-Laden Sky” by THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF POETRY.

Don't be shy to comment on any of my poems here. Appreciate the feedback.

Girl Eyes

(Picture: Doutzen Krose from Wiki)

This poem was my first to be published in print. As explained earlier, I simply responded to a newspaper advert by "Forward Press". Sadly that "small press", which also had its own poetry magazine, has since vanished from the landscape.

To be frank I think this poem lacked technical "control". However, this probably reflects that my hormones had got the better of me. Who's eyes were they? All I'll say is that they were the eyes of Three girls combined! Such is youth. ;) Originally the poem was called "Heaven Eyes", then "Her Eyes" (shining like proverbial diamonds!). And here it is:

"Girl Eyes"

Delicious eyes of magic fire,

Warm shafts that finger forth a touch

Of Love;

Enticing my desire

To surge through lancing beams

As rolling waves o’erride the ebb,

Which sheens, a mirror of the sky,

Leaves pools of cool tranquillity,

Enriched by sprinkled stars of pollen-

That fell from flowers, that hug the heaven:

Hidden beyond the misty trees,

Which blossom founts of rustling leaves.

   These forks of light lash through the woods,

   From dawning suns that melt the ocean floods.

PAUL BUTTERS

© COPYRIGHT PAUL BUTTERS 1995. First Published 1996 in “Inspirations From Eastern England” by ANCHOR BOOKS (A "Forward Press" Imprint). One word amended since. Also Published in "A Storm of Perceptions" (“Spotlight Poets" imprint: "Forward Press”) 1997. 16\6\2012: Title Changed from “Her Eyes” to “Girl Eyes”.

Game of Never

(Picture courtesy of NASA)

This first poem (on this blog) is my pride and joy. Through my late teens I had tried to master regular iambic verse. This was the first effort I was satisfied with.

It started as a mental exercise looking for words that sum everything up. Hence "Life", then "Death". Then I came up with the sad word that, at death, all is "Forgotten". Now I started writing, on a piece of card...

Some time later a fellow Huddersfield student, I think it was Ralph Chamberlain, presented me with that very card. I had dropped it at his house party! Close-shave: my best effort nearly lost forever, forgotten! I wrote it down properly and typed it out. Later it went onto computer.

Some time in the 1990s I was waiting for a Chinese Takeaway at "The Phoenix" in Cleethorpes (on Hardy's Road). There I saw a newspaper advertisement by Forward Press, asking for poems for a new anthology. So I sent them three poems, including "Game of Never". They chose another poem: one now called "Girl Eyes"! Didn't get that. Still, I sent "Game..." to a publisher once called "National Library of Poetry". So, it is in print, plus also on various online sites. In 1997 I added two more lines, for a positive ending. I Note my father sadly passed away a few days after those lines were added. Here is the poem:

GAME OF NEVER

Life-Death Forgotten, Never Was;

Time, matter whirling, empty Space.

Love, merely hunger, drives us On;      

Self, ever lonely, rots apace.

God, faintly ruling, far away,

Sees sinful, lusty liars pray.

Vague faceless ocean,

Blackest Light;

Nothing tells us What is Right.

Life is but a Game we Play;

Death no more than End of Day,

Forgotten.

                 (Yet Remembered,

With Hope).

Paul Butters

(First Drafted 22\4\1971)

(13\6\97: "Yet Remembered... added)


Please don't be shy to comment. Feedback is most valuable to me.