Facebook Frontiers

(Picture CreditDgytal com)

Whatever did we do,

Before we entered the Facebook Wonderland?

Oh, we played in the streets

And went to pubs and socialised.

But who needs Reality

When we can chat with folk

From far away places,

Whom we’ve never met?

My mates are there too

Or some of them

And many of my blood line.

All together

In a kaleidoscopic land

Of “memes”, images and jokes.

We “Like” and “Comment”

“Reply” and “Share”.

It’s you scratch my back…

While the “Facebook Foundation” encourages us

With “Memories” and prompts

And “What’s on your Mind?”

For this is the land

Of the “Loving Community”,

Caring and Sharing together.

Though if truth be told,

At times,

It’s more like the old Wild West.

Paul Butters

© PB 23\8\2018.

High Shining

(Picture Credit - Freeartbackgrounds com)

The high shining,

Dazzling from the sky.

Hurting the eye with that piercing glare.

Reflecting from sparkling seas

Which shimmer in the gentle breeze.

Reflecting and reflecting

From diamantine spires.

Echoed on the blackest night

By radiant cities

Lit by glimmering lights.

Our Gods hover over us,

Incandescent in their glory.

Their bright wings shimmer and shine,

Inspiring us to greater things.

Yet let us not forget

That all this blazing brilliance

Is everywhere:

Even in those shadow lands

Where ordinary people

Go about their daily grind.

Even though we sit in sheltered rooms

Bathed only by some television light

Or laptop luminescence,

If we but open our inner eyes

We can see

That the world is not as prosaic

As it seems.

Paul Butters

© PB 20\8\2018.

Heatwave

(Picture Credit - Daily Express\Met Office)

This muggy, sultry sun is no fun:

Longest sustained heatwave for over forty years.

Suffocating Sahara with Death Valley cracks

In the dry arid soil.

My electric fan shattered with a power surge

Into fragmented plastic shards.

I so miss it now.

It’s oppressively tropical,

With volcanic heat.

And pressure bearing down on us.

The clammy mugginess of a sauna.

Not the clean dry air you find abroad,

Yet still that remorseless torrid scorching,

Roasting and toasting.

Just too much.

Hot air clothed in humid moisture,

Stuffy and sweaty,

Steaming to a haze

And later

Thunder storms.

I long for a cool brew

To freeze my throat

And quench my raging thirst:

Ice cool, ice cool, ice cool.

I’m sure not talking

Of tea.

Paul Butters

© PB 6\8\2018.