Against the advice to cut, I've decided to expand the poem substantially. Hopefully there should be enough signage in the piece now to help people navigate my madness. The first 4 sections are new, with the old draft bringing up the rear. I've not yet edited the last section, mainly because I want to give the whole piece some time to settle before I cut and trim to size.
So, here goes: version 2 of ...
The Intelligent Designer
1. Before The Beginning
It starts as a web of dimensions rolled
together, a strand which He loops around
His fingers, a hammock of plans that fold
in knots to the size of an orange. Bound
within are equations and constants, stuff
designed to become His new home, a place
to realise His dreams. When it's taut enough
He spins it, and - BOOM!
2. Let There Be Life
He sits in a hole in a swirl of stars,
determining chance within chains, their codes
a knot of electrons entrapped by spars
of forces He tethers in quantum modes.
He blows, and the flames of a billion orbs
contort in their tubes, a magnetic flux
of notes in a chord. Something stirs: absorbs
the heat, recombines in new styles, unplucks
His codes and commands. It divides, a splice
expected, and yet - He observes - unique
in ways unforseen. He relaxes, smiles,
accepts this new turn in His plan and speaks
to worlds without ears: "I shall give you ears
to hear Me and eyes that shall find My love";
and scattering dust to the void He cheers
"success goes to those who believe enough!"
3. Survival Of The Fittest
It seethes - like a stew on the boil, a steam
eruption, a kite in the gale. Each cell
competes for a spot in the sun, the stream.
Detritus consumed gives an edge, a spell
for breeding, expansion to cover rock
in slime, an extended affair of kin
and cousins who work as a team to stock
the pond. Soon they're cock of the shore: the kings
of change. There's Jane who can taste the good
from bad; Uncle Pete who can row the tribe
through water, and Heather who eats the food.
Inside sits their ma and their pa. They scribe
their names on new eggs soon to grow strange lobes,
or fins or a vascular system. Eyes -
He's waited so long for the eyes to grow.
He nudges the codes and the chemical ties,
the nets in the cortex to capture the views,
the lenses that focus the light on cones
and rods that react to the strokes of hues -
designed to His plan, which is good, He knows.
4. Towards The Kingdom Of Heaven
They tried to convert me, but I held true!
'My Lord is my shepherd, and I'll not walk
through valley and shadow of death alone'.
They pile up the faggots in stacks around
my feet, and the crowd calls my name. 'The Pope's
own bitch - she deserves to be flamed!' But I
can see my sweet Jesus: he died for me
and I must be brave as the smoke begins
to catch in my throat. I must sing and clap,
for Heaven awaits me - I'll take this test
and suffer the torments for God, my Lord -
sweet Mary of Mercy: 'I burn! I burn!'
5. Revelation
God sits in a hole in a heap of stars,
His thoughts a device of repeating chains -
each molecule brought into time by chance
divine in its placement around His frame.
The multitudes flame in their chanting praise
and steep in his aether, their souls now saved:
He made them, accepts them inside his head
though sometimes their stories upset his thread
of plans and conceits that He weaves through space.
He knows about flames, He invented them:
or maybe He made the equations, braced
in sigils constraining numbers, stems
consumed in a flux of exhausts - but why
would someone accept the embrace of flames?
To glorify Him? Such accounts defy
intelligent thought. Put it out, reclaim
the pureness of plans. He exhales, and charms
pop in and then out of existence. Souls
arrive in their swarms: He radiates calm
and notes how their patterns depart from goals
He's set them. No time now to worry: plans
can change in His scheme. There's some quarks to spin
and matter needs herding. An eye expands,
intrudes on His thought - He remembers sin,
the guilt that can't hide in the eyes of those
who know they've done wrong. He invented eyes -
or maybe He set the design, exposed
those strands that became His desire for life
to sunlight, and set them to seek the warmth
that bleeds from His suns, let equations build
the chemical paths and let physics form
the shape of the lens so that eyes could fill
with tears and lament - such a strange result,
this gift to perceive His design! He scans
His schedules for flaws and corrects the fault:
"for all things must end, even me", He plans.
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