Is Heaven Horizontal?
by Frank Daub
Is Heaven horizontal, Up, AWAY?
Or in the sky?
How ?
Will I find that place on the second when I Die?
Time seems most essential
for the journey that must be.
Preparation? Consequential.
It is ETERNITY.
Is there someone who can say?
Is Heaven a STATE – Of mind?
A condition of the – SOUL?
What will I find?
The mystery of a never-ending role?
A Condition that after journey, Becomes fruition,
based upon the pleasure of the Guide.
And if a Guide, the mission?
To start -- I died.
Is Heaven UP, horizontal, AWAY,
Or in the sky?
He wears the cross upon his chest,
And speaks of heaven’s cure,
Yet turns the hand that ought to bless
To wield despair and death.
By dozens sent, they fall, they die,
Beneath his pious claim,
While God’s own life is swept aside,
And they live and bear no shame.
Can faith abide where blood is spilled,
Where mercy bows to might?
I do not know—but still I fear,
There, coming to the light.
For in the dark, their hands still try to reach,
Each soul now whispers true,
A fleeting thought, in quiet speech,
Breaks through the fecal stench the air.
Yet still I ask, with hard pressed dread,
Can we survive such sin?
I do not know, for they are wed
To hipprocracy and what inside it holds.
Eyes lose their way
in the neon and the numbers.
Departing, arriving,
mid-flight fright,
rushing between
one panic station to the next.
In-transit tremors of doubt.
Flight departure gate changes,
Delayed – no, confirmed - leaving now!
Sometimes he just wants a name tag,
a label like for a child -
to be led safely through
the turmoil of his own
insecure nervous system.
For a moment he slumps
among strangers,
double checks boarding passes
with other flustered passengers.
He steadies his racing mind,
tries to imagine
calmly passing through
baggage-collect with no hitches,
his suit is not crumpled,
he arrives breathing normally,
a calm well-seasoned traveler
who walks confidently
out of his own
discombobulated chaos.
“what is this strange place we find ourself in ~
we’re trapped in the open and free within”
~ quote by poet
dream characters which we create
assume an independent role
call it amnesia or just fate
each entity pursues a goal
this is the divine paradox
the simple truth mind cannot reach
till by unlearning we detox
and veil of forgetting thus breach
our state of hypnosis is deep
we’re both the dreamer and the dreamed
so to take a consciousness leap
we must slow down thoughts by mind streamed
just as a snake sheds off its skin
or an eagle regrows its claws
let’s do likewise, go in, go in
poised in prayer till our heart thaws
sans thought flow, wayward ego dies
just know this: ego will resist
just as Dracula fears sunrise
ego’s wary of love’s bliss mist
for brave hearts who choose to be still
feeling in form bliss sensation
in timeless time voids within fill
they transform as God’s vibration
(“Ascending Triptych aka Shape Shifter”, 2011, original oil)
The human condition is both vast and simple
Both lofty and hard to grasp and
Immediately at hand
And intimately knowable.
Everyone is different
But everyone is ultimately the same
In our basic elements, in our source
At our core.
This is who we really are; the divine made flesh,
A completeness of wisdom and compassion,
In every cell,
And yet our condition is also ignorance of this.
But since our most basic level of being
Is the divine
It permeates all our works
All our traditions, religions and spiritual paths,
Since there is in truth nothing outside
The sphere of utmost purity and light
No matter how muddled and dark
Our experience of it is.
(11/19/25)
Gasping folds of pain
glued together - coexist
Exclusive cracked glass
unrequited conundrums -
... rhapsodies whirled infinite
Statues trapped in boundaries contoured by us,
witness seasons, day and night, dreaming desires,
just the way we drift through life, in deep stupor …
like dead men walking.
Dancing puppets, hypnotised, know not that they
have no life of their own, yet their ignorance
inhibits not vibrance of roles they enact …
reveries replay.
party morning
and we have ascribed to you
your inapprehensible walking
except by lucky guess between
these hedgerows
in languages so far distorted
among dragonflies and flies
we are closed distance
as those houses missing
after the excavation
seek a way out
yet self-doubt chokes
fears grout the soul
Is this shared imagination?
Thoughts of you, temptation,
Love is our human condition,
Smiles or hell, fun or perdition,
Cupid fired--such precision,
Romance is not a decision,
Stay in love, enduring charms,
Dreaming bliss in your arms,
Trust the magic, my advice,
Loving you, don't think twice,
Bless all our pleasure,
Today we shall always treasure!
This frail feeling of worldly fate
Drowning and fast fading, mortal and degrading
This voice, his lips on my ear; whispering,
Hurtful hate; feeding on fear
These choices, crucial, turning life into a surreal blur of chaos
Dreadful moments just waiting to occur
The darkness pounces on my soul wrapping and clawing its way to my mind,
There is something very valuable to find
For a most Holy Spirit is guarding my hallowed heart
And the daunting demons have yet to part
Why does love come with crying? When its totality settles in and the sacrifice is known, how else could it be? Love, so happenstance, making itself fodder for blues music, and it will break your heart! Serving as the culmination of something larger than ourselves and making our lives worth living for. Just ask all those who have gone before us, those who have found its sublimity and those who haven't. It is what holds this world together. Boats and warplanes are named after loved ones, as the pilots might not see their loved ones again. Since the dawn of man, because of the importance of children in their lives, making love even that more iconic, it has ranked up there with wars in the eyes of the beholders, and its final beating will come with the crying of all those who loved its owner, left with but the memories of its grandeur, a simple kiss, and a heartfilled look in the eye!
A Doctor talks about my condition
as if reading a textbook in his head.
He even pauses like he is turning a page.
There is a large black fly
that keeps bouncing off the clinics window.
I 'm distracted, its head must be hard,
its eyes must be crystal.
Thump buz, thump buzz,
thump buzzz.
I have a headache.
My own eyes are kind of compound
mostly I see in facets,
even sand is prismatic to me.
The Doctor has stopped talking,
he is looking at me,
wondering why I have no questions.
After an awkward pause:
"You do understand this condition will worsen?"
The fly keeps bashing it head against the glass.
Thump buz.... thump buzz....thump buzzz....
Obviously, it wants in.
Now we are both staring at the crazy fly.
A humid silence bounces around
in my head.
My butt is beginning to sweat on the plastic chair,
soon I might,
ever so slightly,
purse my lips
and buzz off.
I see a problem with religion,
It's like a competition,
You can't just slip in.
They want you to fit in.
To help heal your sin.
"You can stay, on One Condition."
Tything an imposition,
Sects creating division,
Trying to see who will win.
What if GOD has a different mission?
Just listen to your intuition,
Not their newest edition,
Or blindly follow tradition.
Have the ambition,
Become a new addition,
A true Magician.
An end to all suspicion.
Put fear in remission.
God's the physician,
In the perfect position,
To bring dreams to fruition.
Come join the Coalition,
Life is the auditon,
Your the Musician.
Love is the ammunition,
To defeat opposition.
This is Your rendition,
You give it definition,
And GOD gets the recognition.
The one and only condition.
There are enough religions in this world
to promote hatred, disputes
over pride and vanity... and insufficient spirituality
on the part of men to
promote peace and love among all...!
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