The Garden of Eden – Certificate X

Illustration: Elena Caldera

Tasting the Garden of Eden’s sensual fruit
Opens up an erotic world,
With a writhing snake and the soft petals
Of Eve’s love-nest being unfurled.

The snake is depicted as close to Eve’s thighs,
Weaving its way to her Mound of Venus –
¬The foreplay before the world that began
With Eve’s womb and Adam’s penis.

Classic paintings of the Garden of Eden
Are of an unbounded paradise:
The snake stands for Adam’s phallic tongue
And often suggests cunnilingus.

Eve’s overwhelmed by the deepest pleasure
As the snake whispers, ‘You will not die’
But a disembodied voice full of jealousy
Is angered by Eve’s feeling so high.

God looks down at the ecstatic couple
And banishes them both at dawn.
Adam detumesces as Eve shivers and cries
And they leave Eden bereft and forlorn.

A controlling God declares the snake a liar
And condemns it to a life on its belly,
Yet Eros is more help in prolonging life
Than a cloud-dwelling Machiavelli.

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Heathcote Williams

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