Let's Get Hysterical

Let’s get hysterical.

Let’s go mad

About the Winter Solstice passing

And our football team winning.

We party hard

For Christmas and New Year.

The Americans do Thanksgiving too.

Bad times for turkeys

Great days for making sales.

Anniversaries, birthdays and Celebrity celebrations,

Big Brother and Get Me Out of here.

X Factor and Lithuania’s Got Talent.

All excuses

For making mayhem

And a fast buck.

Any present will do

No matter how useless

Or banal

At times like these.

Compulsory enjoyment

Even if you’re ill.

Oh what sheep we are.

(Apologies to sheep).

We must conform

Comply

Follow fickle fashion

And hug the herd.

We may be social animals,

But woe betide anyone

Who is

Different.

“Be yourself” they say,

But do they mean it?

Course not.

The “Individual” is cursed,

Cast out

A leper.

It’s time to stand back,

See the truth

And find your inner soul.

Break the brainwash,

Defy the dictators

The Nanny State

And really,

Really

Be You.

Paul Butters

© PB 1\1\2019.

Stand Back

(Picture Credit - Space com)

Stand back outside space and time

And you will see

That we are dead

Through most of Eternity.

Our lives are twinkling little stars

Lost in the void

Of blackest space.

Look closer now

At any star

To be amazed

At a Solar System

Too much to put

Into words.

For every living thing

Creates a Universe

In its own right.

So every death

Extinguishes

A universe too.

And every birth

Creates

A universe anew.

I cannot express

How wondrous it is

That we can think and feel

The way we do.

All I can say

Right now

This day

Is

Let’s make the most of it.

Paul Butters

© PB 27\12\2018.

Lickle Spuggy Sparrows

They drop from branch to branch

Of my Cotoneasters:

An extended family of lickle spuggy sparrows.

Their aerial scouts are flitting

From shrub to shrub

While the main party flies up and down

Up and down.

For they have spotted the wild bird seed

That I have scattered

All along the bottom of my back lawn.

So now they make their way

In regimented fashion,

Up and down,

In and out,

Ever wary of those murderous cats.

Now and then they are joined by tits or robins

Or other lickle birds unknown

To this city suburb lubber from Leeds.

Not forgetting those massive fat pigeons

And delicate doves

Who all join in the frenzied feeding

Without a care in the world.

Meanwhile a couple of blackbirds

Patrol their territories

Ignoring the seed

In preference for some scraps of meat or fish.

Later on the foxes will spring forth,

Sneaking around the streets.

So all we need is a commentary

From Sir David Attenborough

With his “Dominant Males”

And “Courting Rituals”

For all to be complete.

Mother Nature loves our little seaside town,

Patrolled by gulls

And guarded by our dogs.

I must get walking in the Spring

When the flowers reappear.

Look forward to that.

Paul Butters

© PB 20\12\2018.

What is Left to Say?

(Picture Credit - Shutterstock)

What is left to say

About our humdrum daily lives?

Monday to Sunday all year round

In time manufactured by mankind.

Monotonous mazes of standardised building blocks.

Daytime TV all timetabled and scheduled

The Interweb

Media meditation

For brainwashed, mindless zombies:

Heads immersed in mobile phones

Or faces bathed in television light.

Crime ridden streets await us

When we venture forth

To pre-appointed places

In a world we call “Routine”.

Little wonder then

That Imagination soon takes over

At least for me.

Heading off to Planet Paul

For flights of fancy

Fuelled by Star Trek

And Battlestar Gallactica to name but two

Of my favourite shows.

For I love Space

And anything else that lies beyond

The dreariness

Of the Here and Now.

Why do you write?

They ask as if Confession is required.

I stumble on my words

Trying to explain

How I simply have to write.

For I never can stop dreaming

And once I dream

Then I simply have to share

Whatever I’ve dreamt

With all of you.

Paul Butters

© PB 18\12\2018.