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    Mirror Images and Shards of Glass: Beautifully Dangerous Poetry
    Mirror Images and Shards of Glass: Beautifully Dangerous Poetry
    Mirror Images and Shards of Glass: Beautifully Dangerous Poetry
    Ebook270 pages1 hour

    Mirror Images and Shards of Glass: Beautifully Dangerous Poetry

    By Philip M. Butera

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    About this ebook

    Travel with Philip past words into imagery and imagination - surreal and metaphysical. Imagine the great poets, composers and painters creating inside your thoughts where there are no edges and a center is unconceivable. Every artist working their genius on a swirling palette of lush options, each giant filling in moments with grand expression and evocative exploration - never symmetric but illusionist and provoking. Penetrate your mind, leave convention and enter the realm of inclusion of all that could be imaginable.

    These poems have the power of conveyance all that is needed is for you to start reading and stepping into your dreams or nightmares.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 2, 2013
    ISBN9781491714188
    Mirror Images and Shards of Glass: Beautifully Dangerous Poetry
    Author

    Philip M. Butera

    Philip Matthew Butera grew up in Buffalo, NY, earned a BS degree From Gannon College in Erie, PA, went on to serve in the US Navy then received a MA in Psychology from Simon Fraser U. in Vancouver, Canada. He expanded his education with post graduate courses in Psychology and Creative Writing. He believes that the journey of life for him has been more of an astute perceiver than a determined participant with the outcome never considered – it has been a pure meander of instinct, experience and knowledge. “Mirror Images and Shards of Glass” is his first book of poetry. He is currently completing his first novel, “Caught Between” – the true story of an off duty NYC policeman who killed a mafia leader’s son. He is a contributing editor who writes a weekly Art and Literature column for EatSleepWrite.net. He also has a column in the quarterly magazine, Per Niente. Philip has taught, lectured and owned businesses. He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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      Book preview

      Mirror Images and Shards of Glass - Philip M. Butera

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      Cottage

      Canadienne-Française Femme

      Conscious Synergy

      Introspection

      Way Station Express

      Other Side

      Epitome

      Pondering

      Searcher

      Unwanted

      Twentieth Century

      Grasping

      Foreign Land

      Graceless

      Uncle Phil, Caesar, and Sinatra

      For Kathryn

      Damned

      Zippered

      Androgyny

      Quicksilver Questioner

      Trickery

      Western Women and Cumulus Clouds

      Escape

      Galahad at Sea

      Sunday Serenade

      Bravado

      Last Ride

      Pale Wish

      Interruption (for Elizabeth)

      Just Empty Air

      Nihilism

      I Remember

      Revisited

      Mahogany Room

      Kathy’s Linear Thinking within Philip’s Last Name

      In Other Words

      Release

      Harrow

      In Passing

      She Brought a Big Bass Drum to the Funeral

      Phaedra

      Exposed

      Current

      Dylan’s Berlin

      Contempt without Forgiveness

      Goodbye

      Full Moon

      Dominoes

      Cornerstone

      Cross-Legged

      Blue Light

      Aperitif

      Apprehension

      Alone

      Audio Books

      Attempt

      Outcast

      Cold Rain

      Viola

      I Was Numb

      Picnic at the Infirmary

      Beautifully Dangerous

      Still Life in Tears

      Statues in Marienbad

      Cold, Dark Room

      I Never Saw the Scalpel in Your Mirror

      Dreamless

      Illusion

      Voltaire Dances with Your Disappearing Image

      Melody Misfortune

      Thoughtless Moments in Lost Memories

      Crime in Punishment

      Freudians

      Self-Deception

      Strindberg Translates Lennon’s Thoughts

      Yoke

      Marlene Dietrich Undresses for Clare

      Saint Thomas Was the Doubter

      Sartre Said, No Exit

      Journey

      Time Stamped

      Overcoming Language

      Lasting Impression

      Obscene in the Cathedral

      Coriander Tabernacle

      Almost Touching

      Uterine Migraine

      Diethylstilbestrol

      Dedicated to the memories of

      Rose Butera,

      James Cellini, and

      Elizabeth Luxon

      He spends long periods of time thinking and calls it working.

      —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

      Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

      Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!

      Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.

      —Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

      PREFACE

      But words are things, and a small drop of ink,

      Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces

      That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.

      —George Gordon Byron

      Encoded in every word is depth, history, psychology, philosophy, significance, length, width, energy, faith, intensity, meaning, imagery, mystery, nuance, power, biochemical elements, and particles of all thought—past and future. A word is thought pared to its most elemental instance; now combine words, and you have secrets uncovered and the potential of every emotion, every moment examined. But is this experience real or imagined, or maybe a combination of both?

      I love words; they are the essential tip of the iceberg, and what lies beneath is thought, deeper thought, and finally, knowledge (delusional or significant)—and that is what fascinates me. The big bang is happening still in this instance in our thoughts—before, now, after, real, fanciful, or insane. It churns from everything we explore consciously or unconsciously. We also have multiple experiences. We may say one thing, think another, imagine another, and feel yet something else with impulses pushing, and this is all tied to biochemistry with billions of neurons firing, new thoughts forming, and memories flashing. I try to challenge that break to interpret the gestalt of maximum indulgence for intellectual freedom whether nonsensical or holistic.

      My poems are existential and surreal vehicles that carry thoughts, past words, and past boundaries to extend imagination. When we read, we really search within our inner distance, evocatively pushing and provocatively searching for that illusionist key to move past our normal realm, sewing reality to experience and allowing ourselves to breathe in uncertainty. Imagine Picasso has painted frantically everywhere inside your head, and now you view all his work with awe. Your mind races to make sense of this new reality. My poetic statement challenges one to think beyond the words and imagery. Nothing real or imagined is exempted; we are wellsprings of everlasting beginnings and forever’s continuality.

      My influences are endless, but those mentioned are critical: French surrealist poets, German expressionism, French impressionism, surrealism, metaphysical art, postimpressionism, Dada, illusionist art, existentialism (all aspects), French New Wave cimema, Paul Delvaux, Magritte, Dostoyevsky, D. H. Lawrence, Poe, Camus, Robbe-Grillet, Lagerkvist, Hesse, Fellini, Bergman, the Marx Brothers, Debussy, Dylan, Freud, Heart of Darkness, Macbeth, The Bell Jar, Hanover Square, Surfacing, Fantazius Mallare and the Kingdom of Evil, psychology, philosophy, and the eternity between the lines—pleasurable, heartbreaking, or imagined.

      COTTAGE

      Flocks of ducks continue to pass over the blue lake,

      And the mild, late summer breezes are full of stories.

      Was this all part of why I have remained outside myself?

      The habitual waves against the break wall reminisce about childhood,

      And the white, puffy clouds are ageless in the unconcerned sky.

      Was I the same person who started, watched, and enjoyed the fire?

      The time was August; seagulls played and squawked,

      And the deaths of those we loved were distilling inside us.

      Was the numbness forever one with our restless blood?

      The cousins gathered all manner of wood for the fire,

      And we felt the emptiness not one of us could understand.

      Was I the only one afraid we had lost a common language?

      The bonfire mound grew with driftwood and tree trunks,

      And we could not stop searching for more; we needed more.

      Were the dragging and the labor part of the grieving?

      The memories became part of the journey for missing pieces,

      And a distance away, we found a large wooden door with rusty hinges.

      Was this to be the final offering, sending sparks as messages to heaven?

      The journey continued—so many cousins looking, searching, wanting, and waiting—

      And the process became the backdrop for all the sins man created.

      Was this group any less guilty for the grudging handing over of relatives?

      The lessons we would never comprehend, yet they would survive in us,

      And the blue merle collie herded us together, the connection to all that is valued—

      Was the decision ever made not to continue because we knew the penalty?

      The blaze roared, enthusiastic with all the forgiveness of life noticed through the flames,

      And we fed the hungry fire for hours, silvery moon and stars now on their watch.

      Was this the time even the youngest knew life had changed this was the final bonfire,

      The bewilderment of entire long tomorrows was now creeping toward us?

      And yet what we thought we imagined looking through the flames never quite appeared.

      Was now the full consecration of the door to be consumed for the night to end?

      The dawn overcame the embers, blotting out and overcoming all our explanations,

      And yet the hinges glowed blue and iridescent red, hinges in glowing, blistering coals.

      Was this a way to remember all the faults I had yet to overcome? I still don’t know.

      The family had found their beds in the cottage, and the quest shimmered like gold.

      And the fissures, the convolutions of everything I

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