Not an early bird by nature, more a lover of candlelight and lamps —low lighting as darkness falls inducing sleep naturally when needed.

Work and lifestyle, enforces an abnormal routine, out of rhythm like a bad karaoke song gone wrong.

I coax unwilling sleep, like a sick patient force fed as darkness falls, but my active mind roams along dark corridors, through mazes reliving moments recent and long gone, until I drift restlessly in and out of consciousness, awoken abruptly by
the rising sun.

First published Dreich 2021.

Supporting BLM doesn’t dismiss rights of the people next door.
It doesn’t instigate
a race riot or provoke another war.
Supporting BLM doesn’t mean, that other cultures don’t matter too.
It’s just a call for solidarity
from me and you.

Black lives didn’t matter; according to the history of the USA,
a country that built wealth on suffering,
a place where slavery and segregation was ok.
To change the mindset of the masses and to fight racial hate,
a movement was set up
to challenge and motivate.

There’s no order to human suffering, but we must defend human rights
It’s a harrowing call, to us all:
black, brown, yellow, and white.
It’s time to pull together, in times of strife
as a global community
It’s our duty to protect every life.

Black Lives Matters, is a statement about a society that doesn’t care:
unless it’s vocalized
the world will remain unaware.
Every day black males are brutalized and killed by members of the law
for just for going about their daily lives
but now’s the final straw.

Yes, every life is important but it’s a necessity to hold the guilty to account.
To deliver a strong message
that the safety of black lives is paramount.
Word choice isn’t meant to exclude others or say they aren’t valued as well.
It’s just focusing on an important issue
that we need to confront and quell.

© Sophia Butler 2021

A bitter sky hung above, people pushed past,
wanting to get home, on tenterhooks. Birmingham,
home to division and Enoch Powell, prophesising
‘Rivers of blood.’ Racism ingrained, transfused via
jokes told by Stand-Up comedians in working men’s
clubs and 70’s Sit Coms.

Hostility hid behind waving Union Jacks as fascists
met in the old Civic Hall, a city struggling to breathe
air so full of hate. Roads lined with a sea of blue
uniforms, flexing Perspex defending ‘free speech,’
repelling protests by defiant opponents and youths
armed with resentment.

An area intrenched in history, The Old Crown and
smiths who forged swords for anti-Royalist rebels,
during the English Civil War. Challenged again,
insurrection, hurled bricks, breaking glass, Digbeth
a battle ground, defying a time when racism was
an Englishman’s right.

Published Ink Sweat and Tears (2023)

People scramble into dinghies,
escaping desperate days on land,
in camps where life is an affliction,
and a stretch of sea gives hope.
Wild weather riles somber sea as
flimsy vessels are thrown around
like bath time toys, at mercy of
lawless children.

Engines fail, boats burst, deflated
like misplaced optimism. The
English Channel a cold, bottomless,
grave where babies’ bodies float,
ripped from arms of despondent
mothers and fathers craving lost
lives, leaving behind political
battlegrounds where no one
accepts responsibility.

Desperate dreams throw caution
overboard. Young brides, Dover
bound—lost—White Cliffs unseen,
only chalk coloured froth of watery

lace, trailing veils of suffocating,
bubbling breath from unwanted
human beings. Followed again by
those, preferring death to purgatory.

First published London Grip (UK) Spring 2022.

Disclosed genealogy, amplified lifelong obsession with narrow boats,
revealing ancestors on the Grand Union Canal, raised as water babies.
toiling together, tackling harsh conditions, packed like cards, finding
freedom from choking industry, for hundreds of years guided by bridges
or locks.

With more canals than Venice, water was salvation. Networks of waterways
weaved around the heart of England, arteries pumping life, infusing jobs
for wandering spirits—a haven for water gypsies wanting to wake in a
different place, craving serene life in the cut.

Today narrow boats win hearts floating like colourful confetti on Gas Street
Basin, huddled together, rocking rhythmically creating ripples. Dreams
of nomads or, sightseers drifting next to towpaths previously trodden
by beasts of burden, past whitewashed pubs and derelict warehouses.

Longing pulls me to a leisurely life, emulating ancestors, homeland seen
through eyes of forefathers with tin mug in hand passing time, waving
to passersby—worldly goods selected by need. Necessary minimalism,
avoiding a cluttered life confused by ‘stuff’.

Housewives descended in droves, searching for cut price goods
in the shadow of St Martin’s Parish Church. Fresh fruit piled high
on tilted canopied market stalls: vendors out to make a killing,
with dreams of setting up shop. Flower seller’s multicoloured
seasonal blooms, wrapped as tokens of love.

Rolls of fabric unfurled, caressed, and sold to the creative. Big boxes
of buttons, rainbows of ribbons, attracting children and mothers.
Women waded through swathes of fancy netting to block out nosy
neighbours. Immigrants stocked imports for the newly arrived: yams,
plantains, and spices, changing taste buds of the adventurous.

The acrid stench of assorted fish, pleasure to battle-hardened senses
of bargain hunters. Vendor’s accents evolved from Anglo Saxons, sound
symptomatic of many cultures, and vowels obstructed by fumes of
industry, bellowed to attract crowds. Humorous banter from hawkers
with the gift of the gab entertained and made money. A bag passed
over with, “A few extra, just for you Bab.”

Gran escaped on the 28 bus for a trip to the Bull Ring, finding light
relief with others sharing life stories— human contact to feel alive.
Despite a battle to push through formations of tightly packed bodies,
her shopping bag arrived at our home once a week full of fruit,

vegetables, boiled sweets, and old Annuals—spoils of love.

Classless privilege of being British in India, augmented
by a ride in a mint Morris Oxford, unmarked luxurious
leather interior, wooden dashboard, and chrome grille
grimacing like a Bond villain. Two unlikely guests, in
an ambassador’s car on a visit to Udaipur, lucky escape
from living hell of the ‘video coaches’, infamous 24-hour
formulaic Bollywood movies, on an epic journey through
Rajasthan.

Our host stashed large ruck sacks, squashed in the boot.
The personification of calm, well-groomed salt, and pepper
grey hair, dressed in cool cotton, a man accustomed
to dreaming spires of Oxford, pushing past traffic on
both sides of the road, heading our way, dodging cows
and camels carrying heavy loads. Left hand on the steering
wheel, gracefully flicking cigarette ash as he drove along
potholed, riotous roads.

Memories eagerly shared of 1960s UK as an undergraduate
with visits to our neck of the woods to see his brother but
only Stratford-Upon-Avon, deterred by the industrial reputation
of the Midlands. Offering passionate discourse on British poets
and writers, passing time. Another act of kindness and

generosity from people who had historical connection —
irrevocably linked.

Wind bends branches like women waving
handkerchiefs, farewelling loved ones off to war.
Sheltered in a cozy cocoon behind a window,
I’m mesmerised by the storm.

Light taps, harden on double glazed glass, as
the long descending driveway removes flooding,
quick as an overzealous waitress whipping away
unfinished plates, eager to get home.

Summer avocados fall, emerald, green, stolen
miniatures waiting to brown like a sunbather
drizzled in oil, crushed by a fork on top of fresh
artisan dough, ripped away.

Fine lacquer mist becomes a torrent; I luxuriate
in the comfort of an onlooker, as wild weather
rocks vegetable boxes, a mosh pit where only
some will survive the remains of the hurricane.

Contentment of self-satisfaction melts away,
as those caught in the eye of the storm are
remembered, battling elements as nature wreaks
havoc, sweeping away a lifetime, as I enjoy a
day at home.

First published in The Dawntreader (59) 2022 (UK).

A ‘National Geographic’ lies within every soul, as dry
deserts or wild seas link to lochs, canals, and villages
becoming towns and cities. People formed from rich farm
soil, relocated by smoke and industry or adventurous
prospectors seeking excitement, escaping suffering
and starvation.

DNA conjures up dreams of lost lands, love affairs and
people long ago. Epic stories in cinemascope, more lavish
than a Hollywood film. Lives gone, ancestors, with
unknown names came together forming unique beings.
Family myths dispelled, skeletons emerge and secrets
rise from graves, telling truths and sad tales.

Inside all, are unique codes that can defy prejudice,
reveal mysteries, challenging misconceptions created
through ignorance. Uncanny characteristics reappear
bringing creativity, brilliance, melancholia, and disease.
Hereditary material flows through time, stored away in
cells, deciding who we might be.

© Sophia Butler 2023

Suffering no longer opens purses or consciences: skeletal
mothers suckle dying babies, old women with cataract eyes smile,
war-torn brown people flee. From image to image, channel surfers
flick from one tragedy to another without thought or feeling,
desensitised — unaffected.

Queues long as rivers flood into foodbanks, like third world countries
homelessness huddle in doorways or sleep on mattresses in
beat up cars, families live in cold old houses where black mold crawls
up walls — return to dark ages. Rumbling stomachs at school,
lack of warm winter coats and shoes a luxury. Health services left to rot like teeth of the poor.

Sensationalist TV shows — rich switch lives experiencing cramped
conditions of the disadvantaged. The struggling taste unobtainable,
to be returned to gruel. ‘Benefit Street — deprived Dickensian characters
inside for an hour, allowing wealthy and comfortable to reflect
on good fortune — poverty porn, objectifying and pigeonholing the
poor who waste money on ‘ciggies’, ‘drugs and ‘booze’.

© Sophia Butler 2023

I was one year old when Malcolm X visited Marshall Street,
precious time for Indian and Afro Caribbean brothers
struggling to stop unlawful segregation. An event made
memorable by a tour of forgettable red-brick terraces
inhabited by hate, he said was ‘worse’ than the USA.

Undiscovered history—invisible in textbooks at school,
exploring industrial revolution, rise and fall of monarchs.
‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ a diet of youth, in a vacuum as
though racial discrimination lived only in The Deep South,
oblivious to suffering in a city referred to as ‘The British
Harlem.’

Resurfaced footage, hidden for over 40 years; a grainy, black
and white daydream when injustice in the Midlands was given
voice, silencing innocuous housewives and politicians sowing
seeds for separation. Unshown past defining an important
moment in black history, contextualising lives, and legacy.

A polarising weaver of words, Astrakhan hat, heavy overcoat,
and spectacles covering a furrowed brow; a desolate day in
1965, jeered and cursed as another unwanted black face, in
another place where you were only welcome if you were white
— an activist 9 days away from death.

© Sophia Butler 2023

Bombs, invade neighbouring skies peppered grey with
fragments of architecture and body parts. Another
unwanted war begun destroying homes, cities crimson
with blood.

Delusional despots, conjure up old empires, redrafting
history with shifting boundaries and torn up peace deals,
claiming lost lands, clutched by the throat like a helpless
child.

Civilians offer lives, brandishing cutthroat blades, women
warriors made tough from hard times prepare to die
than surrender and endure existence under dictatorship.

Delivering death wrapped in empty promises like a shroud,
the world waits as the games begin and thousands flee,
joining an immense army of unwanted refugees, pitched
on waste land.

Sanction’s stall, impotent in a globalised world that feeds
off each other like post coital spiders, cannibalism where no
one is safe. Bold threats create fear, wondering what next?

First published Red Poets 2022

We were reeds on the water, young girls sheltering
from shock of life, sylphs hanging on air struggling
against tides. Evolving pubescent forms longing for
womanhood when we would be free to fly alone.

Long hair and gentleness cut away in revolt as
hard eyeliner eyes hid fear, no entry lines believing
sensitivity to be a fatal flaw, a weakness out of
sight, never wanting the world to know who we
really are.

Womanhood broke rules, dark mythical sirens hair
flecked with red, ran riot, exploding fire hydrants,
playing with self-destruction and other devilish games
encouraging accusations of madness and witchery.

Strong wills caged by conformity, age, and time
reignites through storytelling and tales of terrible
times when witches tied to stakes were burnt alive
for being themselves and telling truths.

© Sophia Butler 2023

I travel daily, down roads long gone,
worn tarmac like fading grey ink tattoos
etched into earth’s skin, erased memories
replaced by pedestrian pathways.

My mind darts across roads, clasping the
vanishing past or discernable landmarks
where, we, Birmingham born, were baptised
in murky canals and made hard by industry.

Wandering nostalgia, longs for home, holding
hands tight like a mother’s grip on a
drowning child, pulling me back to the place
I’m still unsure, I belong.

© Sophia Butler 2023