Home
This town, I have given everything and received
nothing, other than the recycled apologies not
worth the tongues they rolled out
from.
During the bus journey through your borders,
a laugh from the couple behind evokes again
that fear, the fear that after a while just became
a comfort, like a blanket secretly laced with poison.
The walls are now buffed of our markings, my
ankles still splintered from the nightly chases
that made our evenings passable, and made
the pulling of our roots that more possible.
I gave all to these walls and roads, as my back
still remains turned in right direction, as I stand
beneath the blossom encrusted branches, that
paint shadows like broken fingers, and let the
others pass once more, their smiles as fixed as
ever.
Practice Room
Another morning
waking on that
dust filled two seater, the orange
walls offering no real imprint on our
dilated eyes, as the sun beams
that force themselves free through
the single glazed windows finally
gatecrash our morning.
And we are welcomed into this
tight skinned hour, that allows
the memories of last nights
misdemeanours slide back into
our heads like an over dripping
tap, a blast of iced air then sets
our breath into clouds, helping us
gain much needed clarity.
Last nights attempts at time travel
and immortality, lay strewn in broken
ashtrays and pissed in bottles, the guitar
strings now hanging like torn out hair, on
which no tune could ever be plucked.
We then bid
any farewells at the exit,
as those rusted gates that look so
enticing at 1.00am, lose their beckoning
persuasion at this hour, yet no reasoning
seems to register.
We then turn over, each of us taking
our own sweet time, our hands now
bound by empty pockets, and we then
promise ourselves once more, that in
ten years time, this will all remain the
same.
The Valley's Cradle
Drifting past the green, peeling railings
that frame the old school house, caked
in decades old soot that was rejected by
the local's lungs, I search for comfort in the
cracked pavements and wilted leaves.
And this road, that now trades in trinkets,
that only shine through the
eyes of the
the ones on loan here, allows me to draw
breath, as slow as the pace of each person
here, their faces hung like moth eaten capes.
The sun light bends here, not of it's own accord,
but to the will that runs blindly through these
bricks and gutters, and passes through the
cemetery; the very spine of this road, that
coughs up names far too noble for these times.
The last few drinks are settled, that we sink with
the most joy here, and at that last stop, the old
bar's wooden tables beckon, that before we leave,
we watch slowly turn to dust.
Jonathan Butcher has been writing poetry for around
five years. He has had work appear in various publications
including: Underground
Voices, The Rusty Nail, Elbow Room
Dead Beats, Gutter Eloquence, Black-Listed Magazine, The
Weekenders, Electric Windmill Press ,and others. His forth coming
chapbook 'Concrete Cradle' is to be published by Fire Hazard Press.
