[768] Theology

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul, <dattadayadhvamdamyata@>:

"No, the serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.

Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.

The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise -
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling."

	-- Ted Hughes.

In the spirit of submitting poems about religion. This is one I find
particularly impressive because of the unflinching directness with which
it's written - which is what keeps it from being more than just a momentary
witticism. I specially love the incredible sense of despair that grips me
everytime I read the lines 'This is the dark intestine' - because with that
one line Hughes simply kills the laughter of the previous three (and is it
just my imagination or is there a suggestion of the long geneologies of the
Genesis in them) and suddenly plunges us into a sort of minor key, a note of
unrelieved blackness. Philosophically, it's not that profound a poem, but
what makes it special is that despite this it sort of feels right.

Aseem.

From: "Christiane Schwind" <c_schwind@>

Yes. I feel that much of the power of the line of the "dark intestine" comes 
from its double sense - it seems to say "that's where, or what, we are - this 
dark intestine" as well as "this is the dark, grimy, intestinal truth."

Christiane

From: "Noelle" <queenoelle@>

I didn't know a thing about this poet, but I found a great timeline of
his life, poems, and influences here:
http://www.zeta.org.au/~annskea/timeline.htm

The imagery seems to be influenced by Gnostic thought: a heretical form
of Christianity, from a time before Scripture was standardized, it
reappeared throughout history, most recently in 18th century occultism:
belief was (very basically) that a world full of evil couldn't possibly
be created by a good God, so they denied the truth of the Old Testament
and claimed the deity "YHVH" was actually Satan, who was subordinate to
a greater, completely good God (of the New Testament), and who created
the world by accident or out of malice. The world of matter was
completely evil, often described as the bowels of an abortion, or the
bowels of Satan, and souls were trapped in it... I don't know enough
about the subject to break it down any further, but the poem is probably
more ideologically complicated than it lets on.

Noelle