I knew a girl that woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
The blankets coiled up her legs and laid upon her head.
She thrashed and pulled and shook them loose and looked around the place.
She blinked, astonished, finding she was up in outer space!
She tied the blankets 'round her neck and made herself a cape.
She floated, graceful, through the stars, embracing her escape.
They whispered secrets of the world and cosmic universe.
And sang her songs of times long passed, pure beauty in each verse.
The moonlight rained down onto her, caressed with silken light.
She swam through skies above it all, cape trailing with delight.
Her giggles echoed back by stars, her beautiful new friends.
She asked them if they'd let her stay, and never let this end.

Are they right?
Is our “Universe”
The Be All and End All?
Is it even the Only One?

Or is our universe one plume
In an infinite cloud of plumes?
One rocket in a great celestial
Fireworks display?

We may well ask.
And ponder on the notion this plume cloud
May be replicated
Countless times
In parallel dimensions:
A multiverse
Beyond our wildest dreams.

And God may be
A God
Amongst a Race of Gods:
The Greeks and Romans right,
After all.

Yet what matters most to us
When all is said and done,
I have to say,
Is none of that
But simply
Whatever happens here
On this little blue world
In this corner of
The Milky Way.

Paul Butters

Make-believe multiverses written in the
Rain
Petrichor
       Ichor
       Blood of (my) gods
Congeal. Thick. Rich, putrid poultry pan
                                                             ­           opticon
                                                                ­        theon
The bigger I am the smaller I am,
King of nutshells,
In ambition I beg--beggar butcher
Kingly kind **** beggar--look
In, give in, cave out implosion (my)  
God demands sacrifice; copper
liquid spills, fresh,
                                 Replace
                                               old blood
                                                                ­Regicide,
                                                     Warm
                                       running
                                 red
                         over
                Mars,
Vallies of dead bones they
Make a noise (crunch) like
Nutshells
Eggshells
                 White emaciated pale weathered withered
                 wothered wondered want I want I wont ...    

A  L I L Y  S T A N D S
In  v a n i t y  v a l l e y
G r e e n blue v i o l e t
T r e m b l i n g I--I am
Cold
       I can't feel my hands.
I rush rash rip stem
And all
Timeless life
                     Look how it not dies in my hands.
                       Look
                               I can't see
Unstuck by time trapped
In this eternity, make-believe,
Flower fickle, it is
A sentinel robbed of its post,
Eons past will pass before decay,
L I L Y ' S  F A I T H --Can't
Let go of this moment, just
Let it die in peace,
In v a n i t y  v a l l e y
Of bones dry dying...

When I wake up I see a man
Whose hands are open and eyes
Are free to wander.
He is royalty--a royal beggar,
A dry flower pierces
His heart--it rains
                               River
                                         run red
                                                      with
                                                              or­ange juice sun
Squeeze.
His hands on his sides.
On sand and seashells.
Open valley, horrible horizon.
Celestial cosmos ocean sky is
That it? Is that me?
Do I raise my hands or f
                                          a
                   ­                         l
                                      ­       l
                                              To the ground. Beg.
Where are my gods? This
Sun is too bright, I can't see.
The cold. I blow breaths of smoke.
Vapour vanish too
Cold. I can't feel my hands. Go
Back
Inside.

multiple universes appear like flowers
budding as if stuck in perpetual springtime
pollinating the perception of a passerby
bulbous lives floating along a breeze
ear buds plugged  to silence the scream
a dissonant chorus of opposing beliefs

I am a drop.

No, smaller than that,

I am half a drop.

Nah, even smaller,

I am a molecule.

Not yet, zoom out a bit more.

I am an atom, right?

How ‘bout a nucleus?

Proton is a better option.

Or perhaps something,

Smaller than a proton,

Or any subatomic particle?

What’s the smallest?

Is the smallest really the smallest?

May be fifty years,

Or hundred years from now, or more

Would there be a new smallest,

I think that would be me.

The ‘me’ in front of the all pervading sky

The all pervading hostility of this universe,

Or perhaps of a multiverse.

Far would be destroyed my glory,

By even a minute of such an imagination,

My blown up ego would be blown up.


Gone is my glory,

blown up is my blown up ego,

humbled am I.

Neither a king,

Nor even a slave,

who am I?

how would I know?

when would I know?

when could I perceive,

without ‘me’ at the centre?

without ‘me’ seeing ‘me’?

perhaps never,

perhaps sometime!

Am I a ‘who’?

Or am I a ‘what’?

How does it even matter

In front of all the existence?


But

What if I am the biggest?

Bigger than the mountain

Bigger than the sun

Bigger than this galaxy

Or even the universe?

What if I am the universe or the multiverse,

and kept from knowing it?

Ah! what a mystery!

Humbled am I

In front of the great mystery

Of not ‘that’ or ‘this’

But of ‘I’.

So never ask me this;

Who are you?

For I shall go silent

and never get back to you.

Or shall I ever get back to you,

what a celebration would that be?

The greatest celebration of my life,

The greatest celebration of my being.


But

What if I don’t even exist?

Or I am just this & nothing else?

May be I am a chaos,

that seems to be ordered.

May be I am an order,

that seems to be a chaos.

May be I am both.

Or may be none.

When would I know the truth?

Or may be I know the truth,

Just pretending not to know it.

May be I am the truth,

seeking out my own self.

Or a lie,

pretending to be the truth.

May be I am all that I thought,

May be I am none.


May be all I just need,

is to take a nap,

and get back to work.

Memory dreams. Multiverse.
Tell me we exist
in a parallel universe.

Crazy people, scientists!
They say all our breaths are atoms
Of this system
And we breathe in similar atoms
With similar breaths
Similar memories
That live on

Sitting in a different place today
Different glasses
Different poisons
New people
Different lives
Yet,
Same stories

Guess those scientists
Were right
Somewhere..

In the lie
Lie all the beliefs
And in the belief
Die all the lies

From stories of "gods"
Who create the thunder
To the lies of love and kinship
Of societies and their wonder

Lied into religion
Educated about virtues and vice
Lied about a happy future
When happiness itself is a lie

When you break it down
Down to the last
Except that matter, everything else dies
So if its that we are all made up of,
From where did good and evil arise?

Where did the tales of myth come from?
How did this system surmise?
Wasn't it all supposed to make us feel happy?
Ah! But they were just plain lies

Lies to breed more further lies
And yet more to bear the older ones
Robbed of all the will in the world
Forced to believe the gods in the stars and the suns

Yet, the funniest irony about the beliefs
Was it a linguist's private joke?
An accident? Or just a plain riddle?
For does not every 'be-lie-f' we hold
Has a 'lie' right in the middle?