ARTSY FARTSY chris butler

slow children at play

The insistent deprivation of oxygen
to our brains
causes us to become
slow children at play.

We think we’re gifted,
although we lack all of
the trimmings,

as not-so-special x-mas presents

chasing that bouncing
black ball across narrow
yellow roads,

while blissfully depicting
caricatures in cumulonimbus
clouds,

drawing us towards autistic artistry,

when innocence is meshed
into mush inside of Michelin
treads.

Only the dumb die young.


cap gun

Cowboys and Indians
never bled like we did,

when every sifted pebble
was fool’s gold,

and we shot at the shadows
of high noon across
the deserted plains,

as boy scouts tethered
hemp around timber
skeletons and their friends,

until hissy fits killed
the fun in cap guns and
make-believe manslaughter.

I want my mom!


nightlight

As a boy,
I stood outside during
thunderstorms,
counting the
mississippis
between

the flash bulb clouds
luminously enlightening
my starry eyes
and the thunderous
punches knocking
me unconscious.

I’m still awaiting the rain.


regret

Every sun that sets
regrets
each rise it can’t
forget.

By day I try
to capture beams
in tupperware containers,
and at night
I return the light
back to the charcoal sky.

A short term
lifetime
is too long

…

ago.


internet

The kids are stupid
by trying to dial-up utopia,
exhibiting habitually addictive antisocial
behavior of daily updates to claim face space
along the unpaved infomaniac superhighway,
covered with double-jointed hitchhiking hookers stuck
in the web of viral pedophiles disguised as preteens,
where everyone is everyone’s friend.
So just
pull the plug.
Oh well,
LOL.


nine/eleven

Barack Hussein Obama Bin Laden
sells cigarettes and powerball tickets
to concerned citizens in the picket
at the ground zero 7/11,
where jumper angels dropped from burning heavens
rather than choke to death on black smoke so thick,
seen in scenes shot to sicken the public,
from the first airing of 9/11.

Meanwhile, the caves of Afghanistan
rejoice with explosively devilish
July fourth fireworks spectaculars,
for the American Taliban’s plans
turn we, the people, into terrorists
and everyone remembers where they were.


loitering in front of the microwave

The answer to all of life’s dumb questions
radiate against my brain,
while I loiter in front of the microwave.

I stare vacantly at the sixty-seven cent
frozen pizza incessantly spinning
in inconsistent, unceremonious circles,

perturbed by observing the plant and animal
byproducts combust, while
counting down for something to change,

still envisioning thermonuclear waves
undergoing similar molecular
decompositions upon the human skin,

as I stand in a stranger’s kitchen, questioning
the act of fasting a starved artist,
while loitering in front of the microwave.


as the teapot steams

As the teapot steams,
I lose control of everything.

My paroxysmal molecules
tense up against the kettle,

progressing in aggression
with each heated moment,

just before boiling over
with a whistling crescendo,

as the teapot steams.


hangover

Pounding silence inside,
blood-shot sun,
carbon monoxide clouds,
sober birds chirping out of tune,
cottonmouth buds,
black tar coffee,
curdled powder creamer,
bacon grease melting grass blades,
runny nose yolk,
bulimic cigarettes,
toilet bowl pillow,
amnesia dreams.


oxy

Synthetic junkies
strut down the same streets
as rock star peacocks,
tripping over the crooked
cracks covering an oasis’s
sidewalk,

after loitering above
bloody floods exhaled from
deviated septums,
when the soaring dopamine
spills their lopsided
equilibriums through cylindrical
two dollar bills.

One does not need
a written prescription
for self medication.


urinal

The world is a urinal.

The man of
monotonous monologues
stands alone before
an impatient audience,
staring over the porcelain
amphitheatre,

but when his forced
fluid performance
freezes below
the fluorescent spotlight,
he exits stage left

and the next actor
performs his role in
life’s tragic comedy.


anonymous poem

Anonymous wrote this poem.
Anonymous will bask in the acclaim.
Anonymous will take all the blame.
Anonymous is my name.

Anonymous is a stranger.
Anonymous leaves a transparent silhouette.
Anonymous wears a mannequin’s face.
Anonymous is an unidentified doe.
Anonymous exists in the non-existent.

Anonymous is known in the unknown.
Anonymous is an infamous myth.
Anonymous is a famous artist.
Anonymous is christened as It.
Anonymous discloses Itself in public.

Anonymous wrote this poem.
Anonymous is my name.
Anonymous is us all.


immortal poem

All poets,
young and old,
yet to be born or already dead,
aspires to write one
immortal poem.

A poem
causing lifelong readers to
forget to refer to every word
the poet has ever written before
and ignore any word the poet
writes thereafter.

A poem
that is read twice the first time,
memorized by mesmerized minds,
plagiarized by xerox copycats,
connected by the dots of shooting stars,
dissected by dull quill scalpels,
regurgitated like mother birds’ breakfasts,
recreated in an imagination’s reenactments
and then quoted in conversation
years after paper is banned
as a crime against nature
and ink is only printed in
barcodes on human skin.

A poem
cursing the author
with the burden of fortune and fame,
but affords him or her the notoriety
no poet had to die for.

A poem
which forces all poets
to quit creating and work
for the corporate world,
but will inspire one to
write an immortal poem
of their own.


ain’t a word

Ain’t a word I could say
which means anything
meaningful in the dictionary
anyway.

Ain’t a word I could write
that is incapable of
inspiring my dry fountain pen
to cry.

Ain’t a word I could create
with quivering calligraphy
that artists would not think to
articulate.

Ain’t a word I could rhyme
with orange and preserve
its color throughout perishable
time.

Ain’t a word I could fashion
together into one contracted
abstract added by a lack of
subtraction.

Because ain’t isn’t a word.


everything is written in pencil

The eraser
chafes
the paper,

tainting
blank canvasses
with the graphite
ghosts of my
mistakes,

until my skin
sloughs
off dead
tree cells

and brushes the
consequences of
thoughtless actions
away.