Browsed by
Category: Serpent

320 • The Apple

320 • The Apple

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Yelled Adam to Cain, ‘Listen lad,
Don’t feed that big snake: he looks bad.’
Whispered Eve, ‘It’s OK:
Take an apple a day
For your real, biological dad.’

‘Every harlot was a virgin once‘, our Great Poet reminds us; in similar spirit this morning’s sermon invites us to reconsider the First Fratricide who, as a blameless tot, feels an instinctive kinship with the serpent that seduced his mother. Adam’s mistrust of the entity that cuckolded him is understandable; yet contradictory parenting ensues, undoubtedly sowing the seeds of Cain’s transgressive development. Wiser heads than mine must ponder how Mary and Joseph sidestepped this problem, when a similar predicament beset their own relationship.

264 • Snake in the Boudoir

264 • Snake in the Boudoir

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Coition continued full-tilt
Till a cobra crawled out of the quilt;
This dampened the heat
In the Honeymoon Suite
And a quart of Veuve Clicquot got spilt.

Ordinary folk have little to fear from the proverbial ‘snake in the grass’, because the snake in the grass is minding his or her own business, in the same way as a bridal couple does on their wedding night. The non-proverbial ‘snake in the bedding’, however, is another story, and its kinship with the Garden of Eden narrative – from which humanity didn’t emerge particularly well – is not easily overlooked. For those who will wish to reflect on this matter a little, until we meet next Sunday, a suggested topic: ‘This House believes we should all be a lot happier if the cobra remained in the quilt next time: out of sight, out of mind.’

176 • Medusa

176 • Medusa

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That ugly, snake-headed Medusa
Whom painters depict as a loser
Was once wise and fair
(And had regular hair)
Till Poseidon turned up to abuse her.

Legend tells how wily he-man Perseus slew the snaky-haired she-monster, reflecting her petrifying gaze back in her own eyes by using a mirror, the ironically-selected symbol of feminine vanity. Yet the neglected prequel is a viciously contemporary catalogue of power-seduction and slut-shaming. #MeToo indeed.

014 • Cartographers

014 • Cartographers

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No prizes for guessing the plight
Of the boffins who set out to write
A useful snake-atlas
That showed all the rattlers
And where, and what person, they’d bite.

For those of us who live in the regions such an atlas would cover, it could have seemed a useful publication. Yet once again we see mankind confounded by a hubristic attempt to pre-empt the processes of nature.