What If

Homeless Shelter Memories

It started in 1986
Four years before the birth of a lightening storm
When a man who served his country
With two decades of honor
Discharged from his contract of service

It started in 2012
Twenty-six years after the release of a hurricane
When a young man joined a student coalition
And volunteered to an afternoon at a mens homeless shelter
He himself now doing the service

What was I thinking?
This started with a game of Uno
When a lightening storm met a hurricane
Their destructive product, a light grenade
An explosion of knowledge and experience
They took turns throwing down cards of disappointment
Each card was a new wave in waters of high tide

Each turn he placed a card that told a story
Red
The color of rage
From a man who was promised security,
And abandoned after his contract was up.
Blue
The color of his depressio...

Nights like This Day

I’ve dreamed nights like these
When the beaming of light
From the crescent moon would crescendo
Over cloud quilted blanket,
And whisper “tomorrow will be a better day”

Today
Is the day that yesterday planned to meet
And tomorrow is trying to remember.

A night like this day
Is a Leonardo da Vinci painting
Flawed with the beauty of Mona Lisa’s abnormalities,
Strangled with the regrets of our last night’s impact
Smothered by our hopes for today’s possibilities
And shot down by the chances of tomorrow never taken today.

Let our voices paint trails of freedom
Let our admirations follow the yellow brick road
And travel through underground railroads
Until children realize pyramids in Egypt aren’t just pictures in magazines
Until countries don’t raise war for oil but for more food for the starving
B...

My Love, the Whore of Babylon

How does one Rome the salad bowl
of guilty pleasures without Caesar?
"Mother of prostitutions and Abominations of the Earth"
or should I call my love, mystery?
I have prostituted misery and picked up
at least half the listed STD's of shame
referenced in the medical metaphor of the Bible

I loved love
and she carved my soul with double edge swords
and pimped away my righteousness.
Her evil beauty be the bastard child of Satan and Medusa
and I'm trying to free myself from her grips,
but I can't help but grip my heart for
love...loves nobody...in particular...
and as they raged wars for land
I'll end wars for her sadistic sense of love
because her scent be as bittersweet as "Absolute"
at 2.a.m. alone after a marital dispute.
I think I'll call her...mysterious prostitute of beauty.
©Paris “Chi” Butler, “My Love, the Whore of Baby...

What If

I was never one for fantasies…
Never could give hormones
the opportunity to make less of a man of me.

In her eyes
I see road blocks,
truck stops,
and a mall for my imagination to shop.
You make Heaven's description a paradise
rather than a life long traffic jammed toll stop.

I ask myself
If I could stand beside myself
and watch us define love
would it be realistic?
Or have I gotten beside myself.
What if I could control time?
If I could manifest myself in multiple dimensions
just to hold you in multiple realities at once,
and did I mention
your lips steal my heart's gold
and make it impossible to pay attention.

What if we could alter genetics?
If we could push your first born
back into the wound
just so we could bond through nine more months
of love and pick up where his first breath w...

I am-Contest Centered

I am inquisitive and rebellious
I wonder if anyone else believes in me
I hear the heartbeat of the dead
I see life, death, and the struggle of mankind
I want to one day make a difference
I am inquisitive and rebellious

I pretend to be the little kid who loves power rangers
I feel the innocence peeling from my skin
I touch the hands of hope as it walks away
I worry if I’ll ever make it
I cry because she’s gone
I am inquisitive and rebellious

I understand now that you must love yourself before you can love others
I say never let go
I dream she’ll come back
I try now to admit when I’m wrong, man up
I hope to grow into a good man
I am inquisitive and rebellious
 

The Pleading of an Artist

Your mind is the deadliest weapon in your possession.
Your hand the sheath that holds its dangers
Your mouth the chamber its bullets exit,
And your ink
Tears of blood painted red on a listener’s
Once bleach-white canvas of an ear.

How many shots should my mind fire
Before you decide its thoughts are relevant enough to hear?
The war on intellect is brewing in its pot of misconceptions
So I ask the youth now, which side are you on?
I can use my voice to make your insides crumble as an enemy
Or empower my shout to pull you up as an ally
Honestly, the choice is yours
I beg you choose the latter.

So, this
This is an artist’s plea to his unborn child
I pray he or she grows up with their first word as “no”
This way I’m sure they will have the right answer to every
Peer pressure constructed question
I bargain with God no...

A Letter to My Inner Geek

To my most inner Geek:

Through all my painful years of schooling
It was in tenth grade when I learned my most influential lesson
From a gray-haired wizard of mathematics
Never allowing the use of “the man’s destruction of the mind”
Her most complex lesson was, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken”
I thought it to be a cliché at most,
But soon learned it would be harder than I thought
After all, who was I?

I started my mission of self definition by deciding who I wasn’t
I wasn’t the start athlete, marked by a horrible personality
And full-ride scholarships to bullying and insecurity
No one would pull my athleticism like strings from a puppet master
I wasn’t the class clown,
Although I did end up dressing up as a clown for my eleventh grade drama play
I scared my friend Cindy half to death, she’s terrified of clowns...

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Poet Name ____ (Insert Here)

 My mind is a simile like
As if I am Picasso.
My lips are a metaphor
To his paintbrush of emotions.
I am every parent’s wet dream for their daughter,
And every woman’s nightmare of ambition.
I have never seen a shooting star
That hasn’t left me start struck
In line to get it’s autograph, wishing.

I’m trying to expose my soul
Through the blood stained ink I pour on paper,
See my veins burst pain
Dancing on the stage of every blue line.
No declarations, imitations, or exclamations
I need you to feel the sincerity
Fueled by the abandonment in every orphaned statement.

My poetic nature is instrumental
I often define and redefine my essence
Just to find a way to reflect my existence in the way I show you me
So I refuse to fit in bars to illustrate stand out raps
I’d rather make beats with your ear d...