Poetry
By Steve Button
various poems from the last few years
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- 1394 reads
What It Is And What It Isn’t
For example, I don’t think it’s the monkey we saw masturbating up a tree the day we snuck off to the zoo, though he had that slightly love-struck look,
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- 746 reads
A Cautionary Tale
Based on a true story.
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- 8 comments
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- 1461 reads
A Meeting
Fumbling fog-blind through the woods I felt a heavy shift, a movement nearby pacing me to its own rythmn. Wrapped in thick grey nothingness a breathing thing waiting now.
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- 7 comments
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- 1386 reads
A Nuclear Family
There’s violence lurking in the breakfast things. Forced to feed in the company of strangers - no-one fits their mug-shots yet - sore bears kicked from slumber snarl
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- 801 reads
A Theory Of Music
It's said the blue whale has more perfect pitch than you or I can ever hope for, four octaves below middle C they croon in the shivering chambers of the deep blue sea
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- 2 comments
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- 801 reads
A Ton Of Muck
You've got to eat a ton of muck before you die, Uncle George would say and said it just before he croaked having presumably eaten his allotment. He meant it either as wise counsel
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- 1 comment
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- 812 reads
Artifice
That day we wandered onto a film set - remember? Under the arch and through the bright sheen of the afternoon flickering off the river, in a moment smothered
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- 7 comments
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- 1551 reads
Bull's Eye
It stared up at me, the lidless eye in thick white fat, a fixed look of one-eyed surprise. The object was dissection, to get at how this unseeing eye worked, peer and poke
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- 6 comments
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- 1433 reads
Cornish Fire, From A Distance
Alerted by a sudden message crackling through branches baked by summer, the village stirred and distant sirens raced towards something terribly alive across the fields,
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- 5 comments
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- 947 reads
message
u txt me of snow i draw back the curtains & c the drift below a blank page waiting the press of words these things the msg on a glowing screen the untouched snow our shorthand
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- 727 reads
Exposure
The flesh uncovered in instalments, she paid out bit by bit behind the bike sheds, the school blouse peeled revealed the marvellous mechanics of the brassiere. A whispered click,
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- 751 reads
Delinquent Wins Haiku Contest
Tek a pidgin, right? Pump it up wi helium - There’s yer bleedin' high coo.
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- 755 reads
The Belt
I must have done something to deserve it, I don’t recall. Slouching from the room I’d muttered and mumbled and my father - drained from a business trip - had heard
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- 1854 reads
The Woods
The winter woods You already knew Were new to us Again you had the edge On me, the calm Of secret knowledge Settled like cupped water In your palm I know wood and water
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- 743 reads
In The Clouds
It is mid-afternoon, the time I set aside to write. Outside the winter dawdles, snow-packed clouds are holding back. It should be snowing. I should be writing. The pen hangs,
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- 778 reads
The Boy Who Thought He Could
Mother licked and slicked his hair back, then in a voice that dripped sugar sent him out to pick blackberries, to get him out from under her feet. He skirted the cliff, his arms flapped
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- 719 reads
The Fibber
He told me how he lay awake at night to catch shooting stars on his tongue, and washed by waiting till it rained. How once he’d taught a hen to tell the truth, then faked the eggs
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- 705 reads
Reunion
And even now, after so many years, so many coats of institutional whitewash, the corridors still smell of rage. The last thing I remember; running like hell on the last day, trailing
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- 754 reads
Slapstick
The men stood either side of each other, thick gloves clutching four corners of thin air. It seemed strange that nothing could be such a weighty matter,
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- 833 reads
Kafka's Algebra
I imagine Kafka after the night-shift In the Workers' Accident Insurance Institution Slouching home through the cobbled streets, Haunted by numbers. So it was no surprise one winter’s eve
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- 802 reads
Wolfman
had the old musty smell of damp fur as he prowled the shopping precinct, nosing in waste bins for scraps of some lost life or leftovers to build a future, circling round the shoppers
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- 2 comments
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- 901 reads
In A Cafe, After The Orangerie
Drained, a thin February light slants through the cafe window and falls across the table. There's only so much beauty anyone can take. I feel I have resurfaced after time
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- 8 comments
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- 2064 reads
The Water Table
Imagine sitting down to dine, the table edge lapping at, well, your lap, tucking the damp napkin of the river bank beneath your chin. A starter, something light and insubstantial to tease
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- 3 comments
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- 1048 reads
The Fox
Out on the uncombed lawn a burnt smudge snuffles through the undergrowth or lies proprietorial in the slanting sun. He's made a home in my garden, bronzed fur and white belly splayed
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- 5 comments
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- 1277 reads
Prague
I stumbled across a gutted storefront, empty except for a hundred legs propped or lying useless and wondered if the mannequin bodies standing somewhere else could feel their missing limbs
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- 2 comments
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- 868 reads
Fishing
A grey heron the dagger of his beak poised above the shimmer of the inlet, poised to detect the glimmer of scales, enquiring of the murk beneath. This lone moment
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- 4 comments
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- 891 reads
Yellowstone
Shoveling snow from abandoned rooftops in Yellowstone would do me. That kind of raptured loneliness, wrapped in a blank white silence, the world a crisp new page
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- 4 comments
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- 1318 reads
On A Sunday Walk
An eruption of geese came yelling off the pond as if a bomb had dropped. Too soon for migration, more like a gang-fight or playground ruck, low and startled, almost in touching range,
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- 9 comments
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- 1993 reads
The Sinister Art Of Listening In On Other People's Conversations
These mothers measuring their children, ticking off achievements and hindrances, the hard currency of this motherhood business, bartering individual brilliance.
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- 5 comments
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- 851 reads
Early Learning
In summer we helped mix swill for penned and snouting pigs the foul stink of fermenting dregs mashed in a zinc bathtub with a shovel, larger than life for two small boys.
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- 8 comments
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- 1413 reads
In The Wee Small Hours
There are sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet. Try not to wake them.
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- 4 comments
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- 973 reads
Note To An Aspiring Poet
I'd been in pompous mode considering myself a Poet, trying to get at meaning when my friend's 2 year old decided to tell me about his day. Under his guileless paw
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- 4 comments
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- 1221 reads
Last light
Much is made of sunset, That span of slow Luxurious passing. And in the end, Wouldn't we all like To go out that way? Arresting and slightly Doleful, day's end Slipping gently
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- 18 comments
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- 4114 reads
Land Art
Drawn to mark the earth With mortal tattoos These artists fashion Fragile appendices to nature. Whatever the opposite Of the search for immortality They chase it, knowing
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- 5 comments
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- 705 reads
Snowfall
Out in the white clad White carpet woods It is not quiet Though I can barely hear a sound Just the whispered Crystal tumble of snowfall In the melt And a breathless thump
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- 12 comments
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- 1948 reads
My Grandmother
Couldn’t get enough tea although She could barely stand still long enough To let the kettle boil. Family legend Claims a trace of gypsy blood and Irish temper To explain why she could be there
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- 6 comments
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- 1126 reads
Sparrows
She went to live in Ulm, City of sparrows, And so we sat in cafes by the Danube Admiring her new life. Sparrows hopped about Our coupled legs Beneath the tables. The streets were filled
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- 2 comments
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- 675 reads
From The Shore
I like the fact that before the sea I am the same as you The same as everyone Who falls To the swell of waves That pulse towards land A reminder Of the pull To our other selves
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- 3 comments
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- 798 reads
Seurat
At first The black umbrella On a sunny afternoon. Shadows lengthen As the day begins To unwind Green leaves rustle, Green shade falls Across the...
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- 4 comments
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- 504 reads