Heaven is an abandoned mansion
Of the kind so coveted by seventies rock-stars
Strung & burnt & far far out, out of this world
Seeking a louche & decadent repose,
A stopping point on the long long road to nowhere.
Dotted around impossibly high ceilinged rooms
Almost bereft of functional furnishings,
Are overwrought doors leading onto corridors
With receding horizons & narrowing vistas
A place to pointlessly wander in for a lost eternity.
A randomly situated four seater settee,
The dining table set seemingly for the Last Supper,
The elongated crooked billiard table
Are draped in white sheets to protect from dust
Though no motes float to land & settle here.
The keys of the grand piano caressed so softly
By the delicate shapely fingers of the chanteuse
Are still, no more My Favourite Things
Echoing in the golden hours of the evening
Not even a ghost of a melody haunts anymore.
The crumpled satin sheets in the master bedroom
Give off no scent of the languid delights enjoyed
In the slower moments of a rainy afternoon
The surging salty oceanic secretions
Have dissipated into the atmosphere aeons ago.
Everything is spent here & beyond heartache,
No deep blue desire, no angry red mist, no black bile hatred,
No yearning, no striving, no grasping
Only the play of the clear bright light against surfaces
Unpolluted by any perceiving eye.
Even the thought Of looking up Into that vastness Always renewing As to appear newly minted Freshly washed rinsed & dried So clear it is hard to see With any clarity Makes you lose yourself Without the imaginary ballast That you once claimed to possess Adrift in an atmosphere Of doubt & uncertainty But you could never resist The assuaging caress of beauty So you hesitantly Scan the sky that's empty Except for one mobile black dot Transversing the blue space So at ease in the airy element How you envy that bird The seeming surety of purpose Undivided nature Unselfconscious singularity Just itself & nothing else But if you for a moment Could stop looking Thinking Searching You would realise The endless boundless realisation That you are both the bird & the immeasurable Heavens through which it soars.
For a few seconds a stray sunbeam Makes visible the dance of dust motes Swaying, trembling, swooning then falling I have been granted a glimpse Of harmony in the floating world For the moment I am deeply content Eyelids heavy, chin dropping towards chest I dream of angels in a distant Heaven Languidly embracing in the shallows Of a limpidly becalmed pool.
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