So many are searching for The Truth.
We scan the heavens in our quest.
We pray to deities
And meditate.

Something to believe in
Is what we seek.
Some clue
As to what we’re doing here.

You can read about
Religions of the world
And Yoga and so forth.
Join a Brotherhood
Or Sisterhood of course.

A lifelong Odyssey awaits us.
But never forget:
The best place to look for Truth
Is within Yourself.

Paul Butters

Thanks people for liking a poetic Story for a change. Here is the follow-up.

In Part One we visited the universe one hundred and ten trillion years after the Big Bang. Our hero Omega and his people escaped the last known dying red sun by becoming living spirits. Now they must embark on a remarkable journey... (By popular request)!

Omega and his associates flew faster than light. Up ahead there appeared a white pin-*****.

“A star!” exclaimed Omega.

“Not a star,” corrected Father, “It’s another universe!”

That tiny white gem grew into a globe, until it filled most of the “sky”.

Father: “Omega, you have a choice now. Most of our people are going on to that universe. To a new life. But some of us are going further first. We are going to take full advantage of this spirit form, and travel out as far as we can. We are going to try to discover the truth about Existence.”

Omega: “But how will you find your way back, Dad?”

Father: “We have established an unbreakable link with our people. When we have completed our quest we will follow that thread and return home. Are you up for it?”

Omega: “Of course. You only get a chance like this the once.”

Father: “Good. Let’s go.”

All the goodbyes were made and the two parties went their separate ways. For Omega, his odyssey began.

This time, they seemed to fly away even faster! Another “star” appeared. Then another, and another, until the whole “sky” was filled with a myriad of them.

Father: “Yes, son, you guessed: these are not stars but universes. We are somewhere in the middle of a Multiverse. And we are heading out!”

At some point Omega became aware that there was a “boundary” to the multiverse. That the multiverse was some vast globe of universes! Soon they were leaving that globe. Before long they were looking back at that circle his father called “The Multiverse”.

Then Omega became aware of another globe in the distance. As they moved away, this second globe looked much larger than the first. Like a sun and earth. But then other small spheres appeared: until there were eight of them orbiting that “sun”. Omega’s multiverse was the third of those eight from the “star”.

Father: “It’s an Oxygen atom, son!”

Omega: “What?”

Father: “That sun thing is the nucleus and its, er, planets are electrons. Two in the inner shell and six in the outer. Classic Oxygen.”

Omega: “Wow!”

They kept going. Soon they encountered more oxygen atoms as they sped away from their own “atom”. They also encountered countless Hydrogen “atoms”.

Father: “Water! We are in water! Lots of impurities though.”

Their pace seemed to multiply. Nevertheless it took ages. Eventually, however, they left what turned out to be a stream of water. Falling to some unknown ground. Slowly but surely, though, a “figure” materialised above them.

The realisation hit them all at once. Frozen in “time” before them was, a little lad having a *** behind some bushes! And both their old and "new" universes were somewhere within that stream of *****.

Father: “I think it’s time for us to return home, son.”

Paul Butters

I took this job down at the Corinth Mint
after my marriage went on the skids,
I was bored at home on the DPB*
and I was sick of those two **** kids.

Jace shot through with this ***** called Glauce,
her name brings to mind an eye disease,
and her old man wants us out of Corinth
even though I got down on my knees.

I feel like the serpent who was Golden Fleeced
when Jason slipped the snake oil past it,
but, since I've been working at the Mint,
I can spot a twenty-four carat *******.

What song did the sirens sing, Ulysses?
What tune could break your will,
cause you to lose your way?

Were you strung by the sound of a harpy's harp?
Lured by the lies of hideous creatures
singing songs of fabled falsehoods?
Like empty eggshells holding none
of the nutrients they promised.

Was their melody flooded with the bitter truth of love unreturned?

Did they sing of release?
Release from the turmoil the journey was and would continue to bring?
Were the dissonant harmonics of a watery end,
the chance to be one with the sea
what made you beg for your bindings to be cut?

Perhaps the sirens sang the greatest songs of all.
Perchance they sung
of passion sweeter than nectar,
of love stronger than ambrosia,
waiting to be given to the sailor
that could traverse
death itself
and make his way to them.

Dearest, you who have moved with me
as the waves to the pull of the moon,
You are leaving me now.
I know I am not the only moon to your sea.
There is another who sways you to her tune.
Her name is scrawled in the furrows of your brow.

But the tears in your eyes and your heartache
Should they not be mine?
I who live on this island, immortal and alone?
You are leaving me a prisoner in your wake,
You with your talk of crooked highlands and fragrant pine
And rugged crags. Dangerous talk, I should have known.

Now I close my eyes and dream
Not of the sweetness of the cypress
Nor of familiar violet-eyed meadows,
But of birds that spin and gleam
high above the land's caress.
You have turned me into another Echo

Stupidly repeating the names of places and people I will never know.

i'll leave behind a legacy of lengthy love poems
so that no reader could ever tell
     that i've never loved a heart who loved me back

i'll ensure that my body leave behind no bone unbroken
so no anthropologist would ever guess
     that i spent my entire life scared to death

and i'll fill each dusty corner of my tiny little house
with plants and books and trinkets of memories forgotten
so that the coroner could never publish
     how empty i really felt

oh-
          of all words i've ever spoken
    i pray that these will never read broken:

*i will sow this great earth with ideas for blooming
each incapable of death so that no child ever guess
    that i didn't live forever