Creation

The bleeding sun rises, vanquishing my dark sky,
Stealing my withering vision.
I sit in shadow, watching my canvas die.
The light chases, and my mind races,
As stark light embraces.
The plain desert accepts the incision.

From black, colour begins to blossom.
It always seems so sudden.
Earth cracks: Erupting flotsam,
My distant desert becomes his beautiful barrier,
Trees emerging with honour; a mighty warrior:
Existence no longer forbidden.

I stand watching the whispering need,
An ethereal hand creates a prosaic form.
I see six trees echoing seed;
Six roots from hidden depths.
I face the shouts of six breaths,
A man stands, torn.

I kneel

Written february 2001

This is a poem which requires some explanations. To me, it reads well and sounds good. Some nice images, some good ideas - it seems like a pretty good poem. But its not easy, right? I mean, its quite hard to know whats going on. I'd love to hear how people interpret this.

I think the reason that it's so difficult is because I had a very specific image in my mind of what I wanted. I had a story to tell. And it is a story, because it's not something I know alot about or have experience of. But I wanted to write a poem, and I had this particular idea about what to write it about.

Its about creation. Maybe you guessed that from the title. But its about God creating the Earth. Actually, all this is given away by the title, if you take 'creation' in its biblical sense. But that still doesn't explain things. The twist is that this is from the point of view of the devil. Now re-read the poem, and maybe things will make a little more sense.

The idea is that the Earth is a planet which the devil controls. Its barren, devoid of life. A 'plain desert'. Then God comes along and creates the sunrise, the trees. Life. People, mankind. The tone of the poem should make it obvious that the devil isn't very happy about this - its loaded with venom and contempt for this work. Yet, there is a hint of respect there. That so much can be created so quickly, with him so powerless to resist it. The second line of stanza two suggests that this process of creating life on barren planets happens often: 'it always seems so sudden.'

That is the background required to know what this poem means. With this knowledge, I hope that you can read the pome in a whole new light, and enjoy it more. I particularly like the appearence of '666' in the third verse. Do you see it? There are clues as to who is speaking but admittedly they are very subtle.

I'd like to note that I am not, and don't pretend to be, familair with Genesis. Im not religeous and know very little of the Bible. This is just and idea I had, based on the concepts of Good and Evil, and the eternal struggle for life.