Anomy: Part III

This is the conclusion of Anomy: An Epic Poem in Three Parts

Anomy means a violation of divine law. A related term, anomie, is associated with sociologist Émile Durkheim, who characterizes it as the loosening of moral values which leads to social alienation and increased rates of suicide. The term 'anomy' had been used for at least three centuries before Durkheim to mean disregard for divine law. It often described anything or anyone against or outside the law, or a condition where the current laws were not applied resulting in a state of lawlessness.

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Eden is a green sea of seeds,

Overrun with fruits and leaves.

With every step, flowers bloom;

If you pick up soil, it isn’t long

Till you hold a plant in your palm

It is so fertile in Nature’s womb !

Red strawberries kiss the ground,

Oranges and tangerines abound

Next to yellow melons and pineapple,

Blueberries bloom as far as I can see,

Alongside raspberry and green kiwi

But nowhere could I find an apple.

I wandered through this lush maze

For so long I lost count of days

Eventually, by chance I did stumble

Upon a clear dell in the bramble

And there stood the colossal tree of life !

Its’ branches reach heaven and roots reach hell

And apples hang where its shadow fell

And I grabbed one and took a bite !

It taste sweeter than any food ever

And with this nibble, I'll live forever.

But in Eden, rebels have no place

And we who sin cannot stay

So God showed me the door.

My destination is civilization

To celebrate my transformation

And enjoy the earth for ever more.

Time is on my side, yes, it is

I live alongside all my kids

But I do not age with any generation

I’ve now lived a million years

and lingered on beyond my peers

I’ve even outlasted many a nation.

I bought a chess board one day,

And for twelve thousand years I played

Until I mastered the game;

I know every configuration of the board

But I must confess I have grown bored

And no longer want to play.

Though I don’t need sleep to survive,

I often slumber for years at a time;

I have for so long been alive.

On occasion I try to end my life

But when flesh fails, the apple provides

And my body will revive.

Man’s will to survive is a curiosity;

That now feels very strange to me.

I’m eons older than Methusaleh

And can’t wait till kingdom come;

It’s long past time I left the stage.

They say good comes to those who wait

But I now see no potential in my fate

For time itself has become my cage.

There is nowhere that I can flee

My endless sentence of apathy.

I pray God play my enemy;

And with his might, smite me

But He casts a blind eye to we

Who have committed anomy.

Anomy: Part II

This is a follow up to Anomy: An Epic Poem in Three Parts

Part II follows the protagonist as he brokers a deal with the Devil to get to Eden so he can eat the apple from the tree of life. This section pays homage to Faust, a classic German legend about a man who makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge. The story has been told by many authors but the two most influential works on Anomy were Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Johann Goethe's Faust.

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The tree cannot be found on a map
To find it, I must first face a trap
And with Satan strike a deal !
So to learn what he knows
To Lucifer, I will propose
For my soul, the garden be revealed !

Before I can live a life eternal,
I must contract a pact infernal !

The Devil hangs down in New Orleans
Preying on people without means
In the house of the rising sun
He plays poker in the member’s club
With Asmodeus, Lillith and Beelzebub
Until his time on earth is done.

I asked him if he knew where Eden lie,
He nodded his head and answered aye.

I said that I was here to trade
For the tree, my soul I’d pay
And the Devil responded to me,
“I think most mortals would confess
Death is never quite a welcome guest
But even fewer men seek my company.”

“To close most pacts I must cajole
Yet you eagerly offer up your soul.
Without a fight, the deal is a bore.
Besides, I’d never get the soul you supply
Once you have a body that cannot die,
For your wish you must give more.”

“Should you insist that we proceed;
You’ll have to take someone’s soul for me”

The debt I offered I could not tender,
To promise a soul I’d need a lender
I must concede the request gave me pause
To serve the devil may be too much to bear
But for all eternity can’t one life be spared?
If my means damn me, I’m saved by my cause

I told the Devil I’d give him his price,
And he said just my offer would suffice
Satan’s show of mercy was mighty odd,
He said, “Souls do me no good in the end,
I’m only interested in making humans bend
To show they are more like me than God.”

“You are young and fueled by pride
Like I was when I decided to defy
But I have seen rebellion lost.
I once gazed upon God’ face
Now I know not his embrace
But understand defiance’s cost.”

“The souls I collect will all rise one day
When He returns, their debts are repaid
But I will still be stuck in hell
And like me, your soul will not rise
Because your body is still alive
And an empty earth will be your cell.”

I’ll not let a pleasure I’ll never know
Keep me from where I need to go !
I told Satan I care not of my fate,
Even if I’m making a mistake
It is my decision alone to make
And my desire is to see Eden’s gate.

More dissuasion he did not attempt
He knew now I would not relent
No matter how much he implore me.
I swear I saw the Devil sigh
But by the next blink of my eye
The gates of Eden stood before me.

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The centerpiece in Part II of Anomy is Satan. As I wrote, I had trouble reconciling how the Devil can be evil and culpable but still a creation of God who only did what he was predestined to do. Thus in Anomy, the Devil is not a villain but a living cautionary tale--he defied God and is now stuck on earth serving as a warning to others. He's not evil as much as bored. It is this boredom that has lead him to buy souls. He recognizes that his trade is pointless as all souls will rise eventually in the second coming. Thus he only gets people to sell the souls and compromise their ethics so as to irritate God and point out that if humans are worthy of forgiveness, perhaps so is he.

Click here to view Anomy: Part III

Anomy: An Epic Poem in Three Parts

What follows is Part I of my attempt to write an epic poem in the style of John Milton. The title, "Anomy," means a violation of divine law. The plot follows an attempt to re-enter the Garden of Eden and eat the fruit of the tree of life, the counterpart to the more-famous tree of knowledge, which imparts immortality instead of wisdom to its consumer.

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There are two trees in the middle of Eden
Whose fruits God forbade Adam from eating
A serpent tempted Eve to feast on the forbidden
So as to gain the knowledge of good and evil
And paradise’s perpetual calm saw an upheaval
Adam and Eve were expelled; Eden was hidden.

The Lord and his angels had much to discuss,
“Behold, man has now become like one of us,
He must not be allowed to reach out his hand
and take also from the tree of life and live forever.”
So man walked the earth and survived by endeavor;
From his ancestral homeland eternally banned.

The tree of life still stands in that land,
Immortality awaits to be plucked by our hand.

The providence of God, foolish tongues address:
Complaining for suffering Adam to transgress.
When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose
Else he’d been an artificial Adam as he is in the motions
God gave us the faculties that birthed his rogue notions
Are we to believe his gift we were supposed to refuse?

I suspect the Lord always intended that man
Would complete the meal that Adam began;
Why else create such a fruit to tease us at all?
Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther
Is that not why we’re here? And if not, why bother?
Our fine morning beckons and I will answer its call.

God’s command to Adam had only one pardon:
“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden
but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge,
for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
No ban on the second fruit did apply;
The tree of life wasn’t even acknowledged.

My appetite is as innocent as his
Who would have gladly fed on figs
Between Jerusalem and Bethany.
If I taste the fruit, I’ll be blameless;
Since God commanded only the angels,
Man owes him no further responsibility.

Yet I doubt divine covenants contain loopholes;
A bite of the apple would surely cost me my scruples.

One bite branded man with original sin
And now we are in blood so stepp’d in
Should we wade no more
Returning would be as tedious as go o’er;
To raise our race I alone will stoop lower
And see us to the opposite shore.

God knew our fall would inevitably happen;
He put the tree in the garden inches from Adam.
Now we toil all our days just to die anyway;
God has made us survive by the sweat of brow
But that covenant is over, his rules disavowed.
When immortality could be ours, why shy away?

So I fix my gaze upon the object of man’s fall
I am to set an Anomy, and invite disorder over all

So call me vile for ambition I share with the devil
We both gazed up at God and wished to be at eye level
But the end will be different to Genesis’ sequel
We will not flee the Lord but greet him as equal

We are but strangers and pilgrims on earth
From a better country of heavenly worth
Too long we’ve been without our pleasure dome
So I look to the future with a backward glance
To return to the garden where it all began
Our penance is over; it’s time to go home.

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This section of the poem is loaded with literary references and direct quotes from the Bible. The Biblical quotes are typically marked by quotation marks and easy to spot, however much of the mythos surrounding the tree of life comes from secondary sources like the Dead Sea scrolls. Among the literary references are full lines taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth, F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gastby and John Milton's Areopagitica. There's even a Jay-Z line in there, for the astute reader and student of hip-hop.

Click here to view Anomy: Part II | Click here to view Anomy: Part III