Uncommon One in the garden of statutes where rules multiply like weeds & stones lie about like scruples every step is a misstep in misadventure my ways are not steadfast nor my path clear fallen fruits ripen towards a crisis break a snail underfoot & the roses shiver disaster crush a flower with your heel & the frogs croak catastrophe offend the sun with a dismal glance & the heron broods at the water’s edge disturb a duck egg in the thick grass & the elms grow misty all

A Strange Hatching Once there were other gardens, other plots, Other clots of clay. The old gods remembered. Cast from their temples, stripped of tribute and gilt, They kept their camp beside the pagan Nile. Then they beheld a land of light where nothing hissed, Nothing slithered or slipped, Nothing crawled or slunk through sedge and reed. The old gods smiled darkly. The maker had forgotten scales, Forgotten fang and feather, Forgotten fin, fluke and claw, Forgotten the sly

Begin, Again, Finally Begin Organic bodies. Competitively divergent, Striving to maintain Separation. First creature, Rat. Disgusted, self-hating, heart-horrored. Ties a string-taut wire around his skinny neck And kicks the stool. Begin again Second, Vulture. Stupidly well-fed on pride, Invests heavy in guns, Gas, nightsticks and, supercritically, All the plutonium he can lay his talons on, Ending in his own atomization: The birth of stars. And again Snake.

By the Sound of a Voice After a long silence that seemed An eternity, There came a turbulent noise, A spirited noise. No, it was a voice, A loud voice Lashing up a storm, Singing intense, singing hot. And in the violence Of that voice, Whirled seeds of sound, Fragments of sense, Half-words, Commas & accents, Rhythm & image, Inclining towards poetry. And the LORD bent His ear To hear spoken The moon & sun & stars – & there was a dark saying too, Sung by

Expecting nothing but laughter and applause, Adam hears on all sides sounds of derision, Harshly sibilant. All were transformed to serpents

The Original Sin Our DNA a polymer implant from our worldly creator, Blake’s Urizen. Backbone sidechain nitrogen phosphate And a plastic oesophagus for when you can't swallow Reason. Bonding one attribute to another: the adhesive Epox is on the horizon. One mind becomes many minds Separated in competition, growing bodies to maintain Separation. Protesting, Adam fiddles a stringtaut wire, A thin-sliced reproduction of human forest life: gunfire, Gas, batons, guillotines, barbe

A Dark Thought in a Green Shade Somewhere in the newly planted earth, a god sits at his bench, creating and curating each little plant and flower. Day upon day he nurses roots, stems and leaves, talks to fragile saplings, puts to work all the surprising symmetries and fractals he dreams of when he sleeps for hours in the afternoon sun. Neither a Moses nor a Prospero, but looking like both, the god puts down his staff and exhales a fragrant cloud that veils the garde

Ecophagy God was striding the heavens when a snake emerged from a bone black gap between the wet green grasses. Six days passed and earth was in the belly of the snake and the cosmos reduced to a pile of newsprint. And God tore his clothes and made for himself a garment of lamentations but snake, pitiless, scoffed him beneath the apple tree. And the universe was void of life, except, of course, for snake and you and me (obviously).

A Twisted Tree A twisted tree from sapling green to creek-brown god, nature's will has bent its back, perversed its proper shape: Roots that will not hold, leaves that cannot bud, encircled by the serpent snake -- a canker in the lifemilk's sap, and in the viper's blood.