When modern medicine becomes more concerned with curing
male-pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction and low testosterone,
folks look a lot whole better on the outside
than they do on the inside.
Anatomy of a Writer
Ten fingers
and
a brain
is all
I need.
The rest
of me
just gets
in the way.
Little Poem
I am a little poem,
made, not born,
in need of defined meaning,
as rough scrap paper drafts
folded into paper airplanes
crash land through blizzards
of crumpled snow balls into
the overflowing recycling bin,
until the inevitable avalanche.
But with so many
words to write,
there are only so many
empty pages of white.
Chris Butler is an illiterate poet. He has published ten collections of poetry, including Artsy Fartsy (Alternating Current), DOOMER (Ethel) and Neurotica (Scars Publications). He is also the co-editor of The Beatnik Cowboy.
There always seemed a brightened, yet greying hue to this room, as your feet danced in a much more sturdy rhythm than mine, the bricked-up fireplace having an easier time breathing than me.
As we clumsily entwine here, we are blissfully distanced from changes that are well overdue, and which time had far more dictation over than we ever could.
Now only the chores and broken bookshelves remain; the contents of the draws and cupboards unrecognisable, and after just a two-day absence, we now become separated shadows.
The Hotel
I attempt to track a pulse
from these walls, the assumption
that history is productive enough
(or mischievous) to leave a mark,
if only for the sake of confusion.
I count the screws missing
from each door hinge, to help
juggle time until contentment
and the weak aura developed
by my presence in unknown places
are delivered via a reluctant room service.
A finger dragged through dust
creates a runway, wide enough
to hide the yet to be cleaned towels
and shadows cast from bad bedside
lamps, and still leave space for
flattened pillows, which constantly
threaten to withdraw rest.
The reception bar, almost static
with service, and the glasses stained
just enough to prevent unnecessary
consumption. The carpets slowly
expose past footprints of grease,
to ensure I remain for at least another
night at least.
Second Home
The same cramped room, which created a shell around this lack of warmth,
a second home where the elders were in celebration of everything but ourselves.
The pencil marks on the wall as you tracked our height, which formed like a rusted ladder, still remain etched well into my 30’s; my bones now stretched twice the size.
In that armchair, a less than elegant throne; you ensured this shelter never would never crack, as we are finally sent home, our usual refuge, which at least for the next few days, will seem slightly incomplete.
Jonathan Butcher has had poems appear in various print and online publications, including The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, Drunk Monkeys, Unlikely Stories Mark V, The Abyss, and others. His fourth chapbook, Turpentine, was published by Alien Buddha Press. He is also the editor of online poetry journal Fixator Press.
“The reality of being human is to hope against hope. The believing that there is a meaning to life when we have every reason to believe that we are made of dirt and buried as ash, believing that things will turn out okay when we live in a world with no guarantees and a thousand unhappy endings, believing in humanity even after you’ve watched your kind start wars and commit murders, believing in kindness even after you’ve seen evil.”
There is something violently beautiful about pain, and the birth of the stars is no exception. Choking on ash, collapsing and burning, something so tragic can become beautiful, just in a matter of seconds. And then they die, and it all is forgotten.
This, of course, is far besides the point, but it lives in my mind most days. I, too, am a container for horror, and making it look effortless. I, too, know how to be born in an awful world, and not scream.
I have become a slave to ecstacy, not the drug, but the belief that everything will be okay. A cruel hope, if you will. I suppose I have a tendency to turn everything in my life tragic or manic, but eighteen years a slave will do that to a person. It is cruel, I think, to an extent, to be born so dependent on happiness. It is cruel that we are able to manufacture it, if we just close our eyes.
And so, we let it continue.
Here are the rules of living in a suburbia: don’t open your eyes, don’t shake your head, and whatever you do, don’t think. Of course, nothing bad will happen if you do think, but hope is a dangerous thing to have, and an even more dangerous thing to lose. And besides, the act of pretending is better if you don’t think: less painful.
I have heard when stars are born, a whole universe collapses, a universe made of ash and clouds of dust. I reach out to touch it, the fear, the ache, but I cannot reach it. I cannot feel it. I cannot feel anything at all.
My mother used to tell me that there is a place, a place between life and death, where all you see is a blinding light, so fierce it overwhelms you. I chose not to tell her I’d felt this way for years.
Evil doesn’t die, it is reborn and reborn like a star.
I used to think that murder was savage. I thought that when you were dragged off, you would leave trails of rose petals like blood behind you, crimson staining the cream-fleshed snow. But that is not what murder is like, not at all. You are unpeeled, slowly, like the leaves of a hibiscus flower, and left to take your last shallow breaths, your heart beating within your ribs, your life forgotten already.
You are like a lamb, made for the slaughter.
But of course, all beautiful things are wicked, dead or alive.
Girl: As a Ship in a Bottle
¨Please¨, I would repeat, over and over again, looking to the stars in the sky. ¨Let me be free.¨ After the shipwreck, nobody had any words for me other than I’m Sorry. The word was etched into the table I ate at, and sketched into the books I would read. I’m Sorry, I’m Sorry, I’m Sorry. I had no eyes, no ears, no mouth, I had taken them all off so I could no longer notice. The strangers had begun mailing them, sending the I’m Sorry’s small and neatly packed, and when all the boxes and drawers overflowed, I began to keep them in a jar.
At first the idea had seemed faultless. Stacking them up into neat diamond shapes, the well wishes became smaller and smaller, until I seldom felt them crawling up the murky depths of my throat. Seldom felt them like a sickness. It became like a twisted little game, or a song, shoving the pillow over my head, ignoring the chorus of words coming from my bedside cabinet. But still, I could walk, I could run, I could sing, and so I did- sing until the sky faded away, and my boyfriend was gone, and I was all alone, left- to shove a pillowcase over my head to drown out the noise.
The medium of my memories never ceased to recreate itself, taking the form of a little creature or a gaunt damsel tiptoeing across acres/fields. Death, in its ominous omniscience never shows it’s true form, as not to lose it’s mysery. No, rather it stomps and roars in it’s anger, and the I’m Sorry’s just kept coming. When the jar too was filled, I took out a bottle, and set it on the table, waiting. I pulled myself under the covers. It was too dark. And when the next letter came, I grabbed it, meaning to toss it into the sea.
I Love You, I’m Sorry.
Underneath the easel by the table, I glanced at the food on a nearby plate. It’s been tagged-, well wishes, Liz- and I was underneath the easel. Had they painted me on a cross, the me that they wanted to see? I was a legend.
I was a hoax.
I glanced down at the bottle, the one full of secrets and false promises. The one that had kept me within it. Victim, survivor, some sort of chivalrous martyr. And as I set it- to drift, not to sink- I whispered something.
¨Let me out of the bottle.¨
The Dream
“If you were loved in a dream, does it count? That love- does it count?”
reference, The God of Small Things
What is love?
An addiction, perhaps? It’s an addicting feeling, and you just can’t be fully happy once you find out that it exists.
To a person who isn’t loved, attention is the closest thing you will ever feel. You will save it, scrap it. You will treasure it. You will earn it. You will do anything for it.
To a person who isn’t loved, violence is stronger than any kiss.
I have this friend.
I built her out of memories.
I miss her some nights- she now lives in the sky.
Does grief count as love? Perhaps hatred of what you never had is proof of something you could have had.
Perhaps that’s why the abused search for abuse and murder.
Sickness leads to pity, and pity can feel like love. Pity can lead to abuse. Abuse can also feel like love. So maybe I want to be sick.
That’s the thing, right? Have you ever wanted something so badly your knees buckled, and your lips trembled, and you felt like you could die? Didn’t you feel alive? Wouldn’t you do anything to feel that want?
Does that sound crazy? Does it? You feel like a wolf feeding off scraps of what other people own.
Mentally ill, they call you. Not alone or desperately lonely. Not made of other people’s actions. Somehow you have become what they have done. Somehow it has become on you.
Well as long as it is your fault, you have to point this out: it wasn’t as if it wasn’t warranted. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t spent thousands of nights alone in your own mind, so who could blame you for becoming what you did?
And that’s the problem, right? When you’re alone in your head? So you start to make some friends.
spilling from the eyes of a retiree cat on the stairs.
My form now a kettle
boiling with longing.
My voice, cracked and dry,
from pleading too long in mud.
Put flowers not on a grave
but on the dinner plate
for I will join you there,
in the bread,
in the steam of coffee,
in laughter bursting too soon
like a mirror too fragile for love.
If you wish to speak,
speak to the wind all tangled in curtains.
If you wish to cry,
I will harvest your tears
and plant them behind the house.
One day, a tree will bloom
its leaves whispering with my voice,
its shadow resembling
somebody you still cherish.
H.MAR
Brunei
The Empty Chair that Hugs Your Breath
The chair is still warm,
although you vanished yesterday.
Even the sky is guilty:
why will the pillow not own up to its loss?
I rest in your memory
an empty space that’s forgotten how to remember.
The floorboards creak,
not beneath footsteps,
but beneath prayers that never learned to find their way out of the throat.
A cup of tea goes cold,
even though I fill remembrance into it each morning.
And that chair
still retains your breath,
like air refusing to be released.
H.MAR
Brunei
Author Biography
Dr. Haji Mohd Ali bin Haji Radin, known by his pen name H.MAR, was born on 5 August 1968 in Brunei Darussalam. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Malay Literature from Universiti Brunei Darussalam and currently serves as a Senior Language Officer at Language and Literature Bureau, under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Brunei Darussalam. He began writing in 1984, producing works across various genres including poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and essays. His literary works have been published both domestically and internationally, and translated into multiple languages worldwide.
His local publications include Hidup Yang Mati (Anthology of Poems and Short Stories, 1996), Kota Kaca (Novel, 2003 & 2020), Taman ‘O’ (Anthology of Drama and Short Stories, 2003), Gelora (Poetry Collection, 2011 & 2023), Exotis (Short Story Collection, 2018), Taman Mimpi (Drama Collection, 2021) and Pemanah Bulan (Poetry Collection, 2025), all published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Brunei. Internationally, his works include حديقة الفلسفة / Philosophy Garden (Poetry Collection, Morocco, 2022, The Association La Vague Culturelle), Jardins Du Rire (Drama Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Garden X (Short Pieces Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), KAMEO Y Las Cartas Perdidas (Short Story Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Moon Archer (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Taman O (Drama Collection, Malaysia, 2024, Nusa Centre), Arciere della Luna (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2025, Diwan Al Arab), and قمرٌ دمويّ / Bloody Moon (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2025, Diwan Al Arab).
H.MAR’s literary works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Mexican Spanish, Colombian Spanish, Serbian, Albanian, Macedonian, Uzbek, Turkish, Greek, Nepali, Urdu, and Korean. H.MAR is the recipient of the “Borneo Book Award” Special Book Award from the National Book Development Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2025.
