William Mark Butler is a sometimes poet who is originally form Calgary, Canada but who now lives and runs his own business in Shanghai, China. Some of his previous work has been published in The Filling Station and In Grave Ink. He has also self-published two short collections of poetry. Recently Mr. Butler has completed his first poetry manuscript entitled, bruised: love poems and is now spending all of his money on self addressed stamped envelopes.

a solid line 

heavy jeweled lids
blinking
asunder
the charcoaled skirts of night
the directionless cries
of mothers calling
their sons
home

in our minds
in the jungles
bright and burning
there is slumber
tangled through days
splintered
with cold sweat
and take-out boxes
like fetal memories
that bruise eyes
black

footprints gather ghosts
on hardwood
under glass
a cold war confidential
of riots
left to gather
all the glory that's left

movements weaken
the slack jawed
crawl of the body
as it sinks into bed
pulling the skin
into a tight grin
where pink is just
a slip

a scrap of paper
folded and thin
holding up the last
stand

a loaded gun
knocking down
cans
one by one

this time
when all that is
before me is
troublesome and wicked
when all that was sweet is
bothersome and twisted
i clench
i coil
i straighten up
tightfisted
i rail against the
chill and the mystic clouds

that burden my vistas

i remember what needs remembering
and wait for morning
to form a solid line.

sleep with the fishes

Li Bai embracing the moon
sinking
hair tangled
with perch carrying him
on fins of the finest silk
to the dragon king
to sleep with the fishes.

all copyrights belong to William Mark Butler