Author's Notes: This is my first poem posting on Poetry Soup for 2016, as I've been away for the last four months working on some short stories and a Novella that I recently completed for my second-planned book for release by next year. The last set of poems I posted on the Soup were during December 2015. This new Lyric poem, "The Unknown," is one that I wrote during the final week of December 2015. (I formally finished it on January 1, 2016, and held it until now for posting on Poetry Soup.) This lyric write is actually quite unusual. My theme in this particular instance concerns a man apparently in a deep state of sleep who experiences a psychic epiphany of religious and spiritual import. He finds himself momentarily in the "Netherworld of Death," which metaphorically appears to be a transition point to the Underworld. At the very moment he senses hopelessness and the reality that he and his eternal soul might be lost forever, he receives a heavenly reprieve from a "little girl long dead" who tells him that all he is seeing and experiencing in this netherworld is still only a dream since it's not yet his time to die. In effect, he's receiving a final warning that he needs to mend his ways, change his life, and seek eternal hope and redemption in the light and beneficence of God Himself. He experiences this psychic transformation and revelation to follow the devout path of God from an apparent angelic voice who whispers to him and points him in this direction as he begins to awaken from his macabre dream of the Netherworld of Death. In the end, it's ultimately up to him to find and fulfill "His Divine Destiny" with God. (Gary Bateman - April 15, 2016) (Lyric)

Categories: death, evil, god, heaven, judgement, metaphor, and symbolism.