Black smoke
Clouds encircle
A crowd of revellers
Stood outside a church
Hall, fumigating the wounds
Of the past, cigarette ash falls to
The earth, like the embers of the lost
Souls who never made it back to the front
Line of recovery, many men die before taking
The first step towards the upper realms of paradise,
To freedom from bondage of self, to pure white bliss,
Blessed are the sick who surrender their lives over to Him
Paul Hughes is an English poet. He found God in 2021 after he started to work the 12-steps of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous and soon after returned to Church for the first time since his childhood, having wandered dangerously far away from God up until that point.