Adam and Lilith

Is it the wind or the serpent’s tongue that nibbles

On my ear and sends ripples

Across clear puddles?

--And yet, another night, your apparition

has come to haunt me in a vexing vision!

I beg you, Lilith, let me be at last!

O, don’t evoke the gardens of the past,

the long forgotten Eden! Don’t remind

my wearied heart of treasures it can find

nowhere on earth. I beg you, disappear...

--Poor, Adam, you are dazed with fear!

--Was that the wind or have I heard a voice?

--You’ve called on me and now you don’t rejoice?

--Be gone, damned spirit! Disappear for good!

--You’ve yet to taste the magic of the fruit...

--I can’t be tempted twice, I’ve had my share;

my paradise is lost, my world stands bare,

my God is raged.

--No free man needs a God!

--This blasphemy! O, Lilith, tempt me not,

my mind is clear for He directs my way

and there is nothing you can do or say

to blind me. The star still shines to guide

myself, a traveler, to heaven with its light.

--You need no star! Its light can only chill...

--Without it, I’d be lost!

-- You have free will...

--These lies cannot deceive a faithful ear,

I listen to you not!

-- But you still hear!

In vain, you dream of heaven, there is no

life after death.

-- Then, where do all men go?

--Into a vacuum, which consumes all life...

--And do you think existence is just strife?...

All that we do? Our ever single breath

Brings all of us to nothingness... to death?

There must be justice in the end of time!

--There is no justice for there is no crime.

There is no sin... It’s but a shade of good;

and that’s the juice of the forbidden fruit!

For that, which casts no shadow cannot be...

Dear Adam, you are full of glee?

--I’ve come to understand you don’t exist,

and nothing hangs above me, just the mist...

O, cruel, insomnia! what you create to keep

a wearied man away from rest and sleep.

Such webs you spin that even now I gape

and wonder how these tales come to shape...