Cloud Trick

I am writing on a plane:
An airbus A380 cruising
Through the emptied rooms of heaven -
The place seems larger,
Now there's no one living here.

The clouds below are thick
And suddenly I wonder:
Why is it, every time I fly,
I cannot see the land below?
Yet when I look up from the ground
I often see the aeroplanes,
Travelling through an open sky,
Angels encased in corporate livery.

Now, in my seat by the window,
Staring down,
I see little specks of light -
Perturbations in my visual senses -
Errors of the mind -
Highlighted on the canvas of the air -
And on these flickers of illusion I fixate.

What if there is no land below?
Could it be that every flight we take,
Is a computer-generated fantasy?
An elaborate scheme dreamt up
By secret powers,
Who wish us to believe in forces
Beyond all reach of human mastery?

Maybe they catapult us
To this virtual place -
A hologram of God's old house,
Designed to bring the memory near:
The hope that humanity might have
A parent in the atmosphere.

Then,
Upon taking us up
To the promised land
They showcase the sacred vacancy
Of all our dreams of paradise.

Just as I begin to fall
Into the particulars
Of this miraculous conspiracy
I stop, and realise how poor I am -
I always buy the cheapest flight:
Always leaving early in the morning,
Just at the end of the night...

Do clouds form like dew
In the darkness?
As the Earth spins,
Are its hemispheres
Alternately cloaked in veils of white,
Like an eye that opens and closes
In both directions?

What I would give to witness that.

What kind of fool am I?
One that shows no motion
Even though he thinks himself alone

What kind of fool is that?
A soul searching blind man
Who converts sight of facts to fiction

What does he perceive then?
He sees something in nothing
As a fanatical zealot would

What does he believe in?
Nothing, but he still looks
Remnants of God are still with him

Well then he is crazy, insane, a madman even
To search for something he knows isn't there

Yes,
He is only human

Forever sleep, never keep
Die and let be dead.
Rest, my friend, in Earth deep,
You've finally come to know peace.

You are no demon, angel, or beast
You are, but instead,
A beautiful thing, to say the least,
Finally come to know peace.

.
'The wall on which the Prophets wrote is cracking at the seams'
King Crimson - Epitaph (In The Court of the Crimson King).

.
I have no God.
I have no religion.
But one thing I do know ...

Any self-respecting Prophet
would be spinning in their grave
if they knew about
the atrocities and violence,
the fanaticism and ****,
carried out in their name.

Any self-respecting Prophet
would be crying through time
if they heard how
their thoughts and teachings,
their messages and words,
were used to justify hate.

© Pagan Paul (25/05/17)

If not born into this confluence
From the cesspool of the waiting room,
Then elsewhere.
My consciousness schools me.
My ego insists.
I am, and was meant to be.
But logic countermands hope.
The fairies and angels are indexed
In the collected works of Aesop.
I am a network of synapses
Bleached into the soil.

god is dead.
i put him to rest by not believing.
maybe he started the process of creation
maybe he guided evolution
but he's sure as **** not here now.

maybe we should have a funeral.
that's what you do, when people leave
lay them out in a box
pretend they're asleep.

i'm having a funeral in the park tonight.
you should be there.
there'll be a circle of candles
a small raft to set adrift on the dark river
in remembrance
of the time we believed.

angels.

angels who miss their wings at 3 am when they feel more out of place in this body then before, angels who need pain to bring themselves out of their dreams, who ink themselves with words only prophets would understand; angels who have the most ordinary jobs like bus drivers and paper boys, people see them and think about them for moments too long.

angels who turn to drinking and smoking, trying to forget the feeling of their wings pushing air behind them as they flew. angels who can't avoid the call of the sky and become pilots who are always drinking coffee because the caffeine reminds them of the golden ichor that was once flowing through their veins.

vengeful angels who become pilots as well, who terrorize the winged folk to feel powerful again, to feel control again. angels who message each other, fingers trembling as they type out their dreams, trying to grab those memories that are just out of reach, gauzy and filled with blood and silver-tinted skin and golden eyes and so many feathers. angels who live in church basements and see pictures of themselves in the stained glass windows and go unclothed, trying to reach that feeling of purity, freedom.

fallen angels who burn churches, filling their lungs with smoke as they climb to the steeple, not just from reprisal but from the feeling of mutiny. angels who ride out into the country alone with a handful of stolen cash who steal from nearly empty gas stations and throw rocks at the windows of abandoned barns after they've climbed to the roof and back to earth. angels who streak their backs with ashes because they don't have the scars that they should from having their wings torn away and the golden ichor doesnt bleed away and stain the ground like it used to.

angels who hang out in bookstores and coffee shops because they're looking for an oracle or someone, anyone, who will listen to their impossible dreams of flight and blood spattering the ground, of fighting and dying and they can't explain it.

angels with shaky hands who try to find love because there's something missing and everyone tells them that love will help them, and maybe it does, but there are always angels out there who have loved and loved and there is still something BROKEN, something LOST, and it's been pounded into their minds that they'll never know what it is. angels who run with demons and devils because there's nothing quite like the rush of running in the dark, standing at the edge of the city and feeling the wind nearly blow you off as you curl your toes on the edge of the roof, so close to the sky it takes their breath away.

angels.

I hope you understand
Why I do not believe in you.
From the evidence at hand;
The many things you choose not to do.
I’d vilify a human friend
Who told me like you did
Of how you were watching
Then ran away and hid.

Children keep dying
The poor and the weak too
And you still seem to find
No cause to see them through;
To put clothes on the backs
Of those who are in need.
Nor do you strike down
Those who worship greed.

Your followers tell lies
And expect us to believe
And demand we ignore
Those who suffer and grieve
If they are different
From those in power.
Their speeches all the same
It’s never our hour.

It’s always time for tithes
The bribes they demand
But paying back so seldom
Is ever quite at hand.
It’s always time for us to
Have sympathy and charity
But not for the rich and strong.
Where is the parity?

So, if you create everything
And see the falling sparrow
Why are you deaf so often
Your vision so **** narrow?
It’s been thousands of years
Since your supposed first night.
When will you fix things
And set your world aright?

Could it be, as I always say
That you really don’t exist?
I see no reason to believe,
Thus I must insist;
There cannot be a loving god
Unless he is one of many.
Either way, I fail to see
The proof that we have any.

Trying to feel fulfilled
Trying to be fulfilled
Thinking of a to-do list
seems so easy
but they're always too ambitious
Nothing fills
Trying to clean up after myself
cannot keep up with the slob I am
before I storm out the house
after picking up some kind of purpose
from the oblivion
after licking the wounds of being lost in infinity
Finding a way to embrace
the superficial beyond tongue-in-cheek
Lost in dharma
sick
I don't live the truth I know
in my heart
Nothing here is permanent
Should you chase after delusions?
We consciously delude ourselves
past the intellectual epiphanies
where we admitted how little we know
Or do you just sit and enjoy the show
limit you exposure to negative experiences
and chase after ones which end up positive?
Even that's too ideological
But how do you stand without any ground
even for just a moment?
God's been dead
but what have you replaced him with?
May is
may well be
what ought
Because what else do we have
besides what is anymore?
But should our perceptions of what is
become our argument for what ought?
There, the shadow of a god still looms