A poem to celebrate a marriage

A wonderful and beautiful story is about to unfold,
Celebrating the marriage of two hearts into one.
Each turning page shall be illustrated in vibrant colour
And follow the path of true love that’s just begun.

This, your Wedding Day, marks a new chapter,
Where, as a couple, you’ll learn what love truly means.
May you laugh together, comfort and forgive each other
And share all your hopes, aspirations and dreams.

As in fairy-tales, dance freely in each other’s arms
And smile with your eyes, come rain, wind or shine.
May you bring music to each other’s lives,
As your souls sing from now ‘til the end of time.

A deep well of happiness is wished for you,
Overflowing with blessings and filling your cup.
May the warm rays of the sun fall upon you
And bring you energy to lift each other up.

As you walk this journey from beginning to end,
Sharing your lives as the years come and go,
May you surrender your hearts to each other always,
For the sweetest love comes from the seeds you sow.

Through good times and bad, for better or for worse,
Be there for each other always, to have and to hold.
Rejoice in your love, side by side, through all eternity,
Creating memories and the greatest story ever told.

I am the empty space between the highways,
Abandoned strip of indirection,
Subsisting on passers-by's throw-away
food and emotions / Civic midsection /
I am a buffer / I lead nowhere and
no roads leads to me / I am the empty
nest of a bird long flown to the wetlands /
I am everyone's, cared for by the city,
I am where the bodies are buried
sometimes / I am where teenagers get high,
The lake of grass from which Charon ferries
you and your people to the other side,
I am where tall grasses sway at midnight,
Snowplowsand. Cars pass. Hourglass headlights.

Sing out long and loud
Feel the joy around
Spring is on the way
Dawning of the day

Dawning of the year
Daffies nearly here
Thrusting through the ground
No longer earthbound

Bluebells and snowdrops too
With crocuses coming through
From bulbs hidden in the soil
Life is on the boil

The rhythm of life is changing
Always re-arranging
Looking to the summer
For winter made us glummer.

Looking forward with hope
Rose tinted telescope
I can hardly wait
For now I just anticipate.

Paul Butters

© PB 21\1\2021.

The World is all forlorn
As New Covid is born.
Time to frown,
We are getting locked down.

Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
We hear your cavalry bugle call.
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
If you don’t work, the writing’s on the wall.

So many dead, it’s hard to bear,
So much menace in the air.
Everyone tired of this stuff,
So many folk having it rough.

One Lockdown was very tough
Having three is more than enough.
Children getting schooled at home
By parents who are on the dole.

Americans fight amongst themselves,
Instead of putting food on the shelves.
Brits have been distracted by Brexit,
Arguably a mistimed exit.

Last March I asked
Will this last a year?
Well the time is coming –
It’s getting near.

That vaccine surely gives us hope
But where’s our second jab?
No more playing rope a dope,
This chance we have to grab.

No jab at all for me,
As I am sixty eight.
I’ll have to wait and see
But am prepared to wait.

Paul Butters

© PB 8\1\2021. First two lines by Norman Stevens.

Some evil walks alone
with a cold heart beat
and a face of bone.
Some evil walks in threes
with a trembling laugh
and with eyes full of glee.
Some evil wears a kindly face
in the street-light chaos
it tempts your full embrace.
Some evil rings a hollow bell
in the whirlwind alleys
on the roads to hell.
Some evil keeps a cool head,
some evil lies in your bed.
Some evil is a ticking clock
lulling you to sleep
with your mind unlocked,
and, while you rest amid
its Mercury lies,
it spreads its wings
and drowns your cries.
Some evil walks alone
with a cold heart beat
and a face of bone.

With my head on straight,
I hear the trees falling
with no one around,
for I am no one.
They do, in fact, make a sound.

With my eyes seeing clear,
Just another choice
just another day
just another voice
just another play.
Not enough time, not enough love,
not of enough of a reason
to keep trekking through the mud.
Not enough words to nail down what
you're thinking of the sinking
and the rising of the flood.
Too much silence, too much disguise,
too much of nothing, too many sweet little lies,
too much of something I can't recognize,
too many angles of mysterious intent.
Too much to wrangle, all my patience spent.

And yet...?

I fatten the cow
And drink her milk
To wash down
Her baby's flesh
And she loves me even now
As I squeeze her *******
Her milk allows
It feels like silk
Because I fattened the cow
To drink her milk

Everything happens at once. The mixing
of blue-green dropping white on cold brown rocks,
a maelstrom of water sounds affixing
themselves to fine hovering mist which talks
pouring and pounding to the surroundings,
flat river interrupted; sculpted liquid
fluctuations arising / collapsing
ever-changing life depicted in mid—
crest: trough, tribulation, swirl and foam,
scented moisture feels soft over the jagged
undercurrent. A fish jumps. Water carves stone.
We are released: through spray the river flows,
exiting the eddy and peacefully home.

Sorry said the merry man, adjacent on his way,

I've gone and ticked you off while I've been out tramping today

And in my careless frolic I seem to have stole your heart

What brutal lust you blow towards me, gushing like a ****


But I'm not la-da-dee-da-dee, a manly bearded sprite

Jingle though my stirrups do like dormice held too tight

I'm a serious enterprise, a man deeply invested

In stacking stocks and picking prices, if you're interested?


She danced reluctantly to him, unnatured to the rhythm

But with a wink she start'd to slink and jim-jam along with him

The two then picked their sandals up and shuffled down the street

And drank and laughed amerrily at all they chanced to meet


To the bank they wandered, legislating they did go

In government, in finance, in high station to and fro

Each day they yawned and gargled on a fresh new tonic smell

And went on down the street to make a fresh mismanaged hell


Soon agiggling and adultering they fell down in a mess

Holes and tears ashaming his and her once modest dress

There they lay and blocked the road till bobby picked them up

And once they'd laughed their fill of him they bribed the greasy pup


He took them to the city square and let them borrow his hat

They gave out fines and sentences for being thin or fat

They stood on boxes, had ideas for rent for half a pence

And sat gracefully cross-eyed on the splintering picket fence


Then donned a mitre, did a dance, their pageantry displayed,

They became gods, just for a laugh, the vicarage dismayed

When down from heaven lightning bolts, shot with a holy hum

Came buzzing like a hornets' nest and shocked them on the ***


A **** of smoke, a whiff of cheese, the townsfolk breathed release

Gone at last those terrors past, they could return to peace

Then up from high a saintly sigh two angels billowed down

Golden halos greasy and no pants beneath their gown


The townsfolk wept and cried aloud, their stomachs plopped and churned

To see the pair of villains there, so gracefully returned

Blessed be the kingmakers the two of them agreed

Until next weekend, Duw my dear, and until then, God's speed.