Remnant

(Picture Credit - Daily Star)

We watch from space

Safe in our spaceship

As a small rock planet,

That has orbited it’s star

Over seven and a half billion times –

All those billions of its years –

Is peeled away

And eaten

By that very sun

That gave it birth.

Two and a half billion years before,

This star ran dry of hydrogen

And grew

From yellow dwarf to red giant.

Now, nothing is left of three of its worlds,

All engulfed by flame

As the sun grew

Into a giant ball of death.

All history is gone.

Nothing to show

For countless civilisations

That adorned the third planet.

But oh what’s this?

We spot a tiny spacecraft!

Must reel it in.

Examine it.

It has a name:

“Voyager 1”

Inside: a Golden Disc!

A Golden Record.

We can play it.

Images of hairless bipeds.

Ancestors from that third planet.

Sounds of animals and someone laughing.

Images of bipeds taking sustenance.

And best of all

More sounds

Of something called “Rock Music”:

A being called “Chuck Berry”

“Singing a song” called “Johnny B. Goode”.

For we have feet too

And it makes them tap.

Paul Butters

© PB 12\12\2019.

Joe Public

He lounges in his armchair

Sucking on a fag

And quaffing beer.

His eyes are glued to the telly,

Watching Corrie

Then footie

Before heading off to the pub.

He feels he’s earned his basic pleasures

As he checks his mobile

For emails and Tweets

And Facebook posts.

Comforts earned by slaving away

All day

For some faceless bureaucrat

Hidden away in his company’s

Ivory tower.

For this is Joe Public.

Ignore him at your peril.

He has lots and lots of mates.

And he is fed up of the “Nanny State”

With it’s, “You shouldn’t do this”

And , “You shouldn’t (or should) do that”.

He’s fed up too with the PC Brigade

Having already escaped the “God Squad”.

But he’s bloody angry

At simply being ignored.

You can keep Joe happy

With Celebrity and Social Media

And sport

And even “Pointless Quizzes”.

He avoids Education

To maintain his “Street Cred”.

But there will come a point

When he’s had enough.

And once that happens

His festering grievances

Will surface

Like killer sharks.

And if he joins a mob of like-minded souls

Who knows where that may lead?

Perhaps to Revolution.

So think on, my friend.

Take care of Joe.

Indeed of Every Joe.

For Joe could be

The Most Important Person

In The World.

Paul Butters

© PB 30\11\2019.

Miraculous

Did The Universe exist

Before it was seen

By us?

Some say you Are the universe

Looking at itself.

Chicken or egg,

Egg or chicken?

That mystery

Called Consciousness.

Macrocosm in a Microcosm,

Solar System in an atom.

We imagine all

So everything exists

Within us.

Miraculous.

Paul Butters

© PB 6\11\2019.

Let's Face It

(Picture Credit - Vice com)

Many take Faith in God

Or The Spiritual World

Or other Power.

It gives them Purpose

And makes them feel good.

I smile for them

In their Positive View

And wish them luck with that.

I hope they are right

In their beliefs

For I may benefit too.

But, let’s face it,

Science shows

That when we die,

Each one of us,

Our flame is totally

Extinguished.
No-one lives forever.
Everyone dies.

We are reduced to skeletons

Or scattered ashes

(Unless kept in an urn)

Or in some other form

Of “preservation”.

These are the facts

From which

We cannot escape.

All the more important then

That as the cliché goes

We make the most

Of what remains

Of our Life.

Important that we Love all living things

And do our best

To Achieve all that we can,

Aspire and Succeed

For a better world

And for The Common Good.

Paul Butters

© PB 3\11\2019. 

(Two more lines added to 4th stanza 4\11).