According to the Bible there is
“Heaven”
A high place where all good people go
When their Life’s innings is over.
But Bad folk go down to “Hell” –
To suffer “bottomless perdition”.

Yet we only have to look up
At the morning or evening sky
To see Planet Hell:
It’s the brightest “star” of all:
Venus!

And I believe
That out there amongst that ocean of stars
There is a so called “Exoplanet”
In a distant solar system
Like ours
Perhaps twice as big as Earth:
A sub-tropical world
With ice only at the very poles
And on lofty mountain tops.

I see a place of endless forest
Filled with butterflies
And songbirds.
Grassy plains too,
Roamed by alien buffalo.
Oceans teeming with fish
And dolphins
And colourful corals.

A world untroubled
By killing
Or pollution.
Dotted with tiny villages
Only
With peaceful inhabitants
Basking in afternoon suns.

I picture a utopian paradise
Shangri-la
Or what you will.
Another Eden,
Or if you prefer
Simply
Heaven.

Paul Butters

© PB 28\12\2020.

Another one for Norman Stevens.

docile tones and calm streaks,
fair blues and greyest greys.

she sits in line patiently
waiting for her time to shine.
she thinks of love and passion
a moment where someone says
“mine”

she floats endlessly
through infinite time while
millions of miles away

she burns so bright and
surrounded by billions of stars
and survives on heat and intensity.

The witch lay a curse on me,
with the last ragged shriek of breath.
Then, the flames took on an
altogether different smell,
and though she writhed against the fraying ropes,
there was no hope.
And as the goddess fried,
we held hands and sang
of a better time, in a better place.
I felt the moon shivering,
wracked with fear for when
the sun would shine.
When Venus would rise from the ashes,
a phoenix, and love would live again.

In the dark of night,
Just before the light of dawn
In the heavens she stands,
Pridefully gleaming.

~ Umi

my restraint, may seem like an impregnable enemy line
but when your love blooms and wind sniffs the wound of your heart,
let the fragrance sneak in and cut me like an elvish sword.

just thinking back
           on
my twenties and cracking
           a
smile for every tree I hollowed
           out
to make room for a new universe.


now,
in my thirties, I laugh at windows
           stacked
on top of Mercury's head as
           Venus covers her mouth and hides again.