Dec 2020
Poems about Adam, Eve, Lucifer, Eden and the Fall
Eden
by Michael R. Burch
Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...
Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch
There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.
The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.
Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”
The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;
he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.
Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.
Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.
“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.
“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”
“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches...”
“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”
Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Temptation
by Michael R. Burch
Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.
And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.
Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.
He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.
I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
You!
by Michael R. Burch
For forty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.
For forty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.
For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways,
prevarications and distance.
Like a child dismissed,
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing "mercy" is chance
and "heaven"―a list.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Note: I call mercy “chance” and heaven a “list” because the bible says its “god” predestines some people to be “vessels of mercy” and others to be “vessels of destruction.” Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical “god” or such an unjust “heaven”... but billions have, and do.
***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"
No One
by Michael R. Burch
No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.
No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.
No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.
Bikini
by Michael R. Burch
Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.
Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.
Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch
Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.
Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!”... as the gaunt vultures stare.
Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by by Michael R. Burch
We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.
Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch
Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch
What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?
What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?
What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?
Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:
why is it God that they fear?
Published in The Bible of Hell
lust!
by michael r. burch
i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild
and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...
but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:
He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!
He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”
my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...
together we learned why Religion is hell.
Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Cain, Abel
Eden
by Michael R. Burch
Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...
Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch
There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.
The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.
Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”
The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;
he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.
Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.
Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.
“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.
“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”
“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches...”
“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”
Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Temptation
by Michael R. Burch
Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.
And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.
Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.
He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.
I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
You!
by Michael R. Burch
For forty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.
For forty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.
For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways,
prevarications and distance.
Like a child dismissed,
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing "mercy" is chance
and "heaven"―a list.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Note: I call mercy “chance” and heaven a “list” because the bible says its “god” predestines some people to be “vessels of mercy” and others to be “vessels of destruction.” Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical “god” or such an unjust “heaven”... but billions have, and do.
***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"
No One
by Michael R. Burch
No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.
No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.
No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.
Bikini
by Michael R. Burch
Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.
Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.
Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch
Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.
Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!”... as the gaunt vultures stare.
Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by by Michael R. Burch
We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.
Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch
Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch
What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?
What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?
What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?
Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:
why is it God that they fear?
Published in The Bible of Hell
lust!
by michael r. burch
i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild
and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...
but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:
He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!
He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”
my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...
together we learned why Religion is hell.
Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Cain, Abel
