You are Great
Never forget that.
I’m telling you
You are unique
A DNA Lottery win.

You Exist
Are Conscious
Sentient
And so much more.
A Wonder.
Incredible.

Every bit, you are, of all these things
As Royalty
Presidents
Or any Power Figure
You care to name.

By all means be polite
To Kings and Queens
And figures of Authority.
But always know
Within yourself
That You are The One.

For You are the only one
That lives Your Life
And that’s the only fact
That Counts.

Give due deference to those in power
If only to preserve yourself
For your survival is
The only thing that matters.

Esteem yourself
For you are wonderful
Assert yourself
For you’re the only one
Who is I.

Paul Butters

Every bad has some good in it
like silver line round the cloud
a bad isn't bad every bit
has something to make feel proud.

One night on a rainy day
out on my aimless roam
saw a koi that lost its way
caught it and brought it home.

In a bucket it lived two years
no way I would ever regret that
had I on that day chosen to stay clear
it would have been taken by a cat.

Once she bought a bird cheap
back home we soon found out
surely it wasn't a prized keep
was lame in one leg no doubt.

But be sure we chose not at all a wrong
the foot though not cured healed a lot
the budgie would not have lasted long
had its lameness prevented to be bought.

On being asked, Whence is the flower?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

Slumping out of my fickle willow sleep,
Dazed in dream-shaped clouds.
My ears induce a pitch of reality.
I must awake and dawn into the day,
Rather than slumber and succumb in my delusions.
The scent of warm darkness filtering my imagination,
Echoes throughout the house and into my shallow cup.
My lips caress the dark silk,
Transcending through my body
The darkness fills.