Heaven and Hell

Heaven

You are the place where my own life stretches before me

A comforting expanse

Filled with the joy of things I love

An open book

A glimpse of sunlight’s rays glinting through slatted louvres

A bowl of cereal with the desert spoon lying all akimber

In the silence of you

Heaven

There is no disparaging voice

Making endless judgements

Of what has or does not have value

Instead you are the gaze

That is benevolent

And just sees the beauty in everything

That does not judge it as a mess

In your wisdom

You sense the gift of creativity

That lives hidden deep inside the chaos

And you free me from the prison of the maniacal past

Tortured splinters of a repressive way of being

That lodge with all the weight of iron filings in my chest

Hell you are the place of torment

Where I cannot breathe

Strangled by the critic and his straitjacket

Heaven you are the place I long to live

Surrendered liberated and finally freed

From his endless ongoing

Cacophony