To the skies lifted
The lairs of heaven unfold
In speechless beauty
That would deify description
My eyes and hands
Razed freely
Embracing awe
That heaven was packing
In mirror seconds
To be
Thanking
That God
Of the quick
And the dead
Thou sparest cell
And crampiest image
As vision screened
Buy a second hand whirled
Apple in hand
Head hung
Feat dangling
Amid heir
Too emotion picture
Only taken
Still
Buy ahead in the cloud
Captured in eternity
Likely never experienced
As real eyes
That in which a head
Re-mining me
That eye
Made only slightly
Less than angels
Of what missing
Ahhhh
Gimps of heaven
I wrote this poem riding the Megabus to Chicago. I was staring into the heavens, struck by the majesty of the clouds and the ethereal feel that they emanated. Likely nobody else on the bus was available for such an experience, because most were busy on their assorted and sundry electronic devices, interfacing with a different sort of cloud. I pondered the notion that the heavens could open up and a tsunami of angelic forces could grace us with their presents and nobody else would notice, not at least until possibly published online with a few seconds delay and displayed on a less-than-majestically-sized screen. I view our obsession with electronic paraphernalia as disabling our souls, a sort of anti-prosthesis that instead of making us more whole robs us of ever-present presents. Being a “gimp” of heaven is not some defect wrought upon us by some cruel and enigmatic God. There is a better life beyond our reliance on coping with life through electronic prostheses. Even with all the pain and befuddlement in life, I strongly suspect that simply experiencing such realities directly is better than obsessively tuning into some post-game show after the fact for some crowd-sourced analysis. On that bus, my lonely gratitude pined for a world where there was more face-to-face presence in the now — which, of course is present now, and quiet certainly lacking luster in beeping re-runs. So, may you stand up and walk without your prostheses, and if you find this awkward or even painful, it’s OK people to walk with glimpse.
