“Mulga Bill’s Bicycle”
January 30, 2011 § 1 Comment
And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden. But you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16
Twas Adam, on an evening walk, who caught the sinful craze
And turned away the gracious Lord who gave him all his days,
He ambled through the garden next to Eve – his darling wife,
And gobbled down the berries from the yummy tree of life.
But lurking in the shrubb’ry was an adder keen to greet:
It mentioned all the fruits and said “Excuse me, can you eat?”
Well Eve, to whom the question travelled, stumbled to a blunder.
She knew of one forbidden tree, but now she fell to wonder:
Perhaps the Lord (and so the serpent said) had been a lying,
Or never really said the tree’s devourer would be dying.
And so she went to seize its crop without another blinking,
Which raises many questions, such as: what was Adam thinking?
Well scripture doesn’t really say, but still it’s worth a guess,
For men throughout the years would make a very sim’lar mess.
Perhaps he thought “Look here, you snake, from Eden to the sea,
From over there to over here, there’s none around like me.
Obedience for me is but a simple, sweet delight –
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a glow worm can it light?
I’m very good at being good, as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk – I hate a man that blows.”
And if he reckoned all of that, the tragedy was this:
The Lord had made him full of goodness, blessedness and bliss,
But did he think he didn’t need the Lord to keep him strong,
That on his own he wouldn’t do the slightest bit of wrong?
Well possibly…for when his wife had bitten, chewed and swallowed,
She handed him a piece and, in a moment, Adam followed!
Twas Adam, then, on Eden’s walk who ate the banned cuisine,
And in his heart began a horrid journey unforeseen,
His soul – it hurtled down a hill inside him to the fray,
And went a dozen yards and bolted dirtily away.
It left the track and took him on a blinding terrored streak,
And whistled down the awful slope and stopped in Dead Man’s Creek.
Twas Adam then, with quite a squawk, who tumbled thus from grace,
And brought the Lord’s displeasure on the human being race,
For though his soul was dead in sin, it lived to make a kid,
And carry on a nature to approve of what he did.
And Adam and his wife began to fight and yell and squabble,
And blame each other often for that first regretful gobble.
And no one ever since has been as good as in the ‘ginning,
For all of us, but one, have been a-constant-ally sinning.
But still the Lord was ready with some mercy for the strife:
He went to tell the couple of a coming human life:
A powerful descendant to assume the fallen flesh,
And crush the crafty serpent and restore the race afresh.
And so the awful consequence of sin began abating,
And with a sigh of thankfulness, a people started waiting…
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“The Man from Ironbark”
January 30, 2011 § 2 Comments
“Moses summoned all Israel and said…’You will settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety'” Deuteronomy 12:10
It was a very hairy man who struck a certain town,
And stumbled on a leery plan to bed and settle down.
He wandered here and wandered there, until a true beguiler
Enticed him with her looks and flair – a woman named Delilah.
The union, though, was fateful for our Samson and his mop,
For soon the lass would launch a store – a sort of barber’s shop.
Well Samson was a man of might – the strongest human ever,
With strength akin to dynamite and gelignite together.
He was the Living Lord’s design to save His populi,
From horrid things their Philistine oppressors used to try.
In fact it’s said that once he warded off a thousand crims
With just a bone, and what the Lord’d put into his limbs.
Delilah, though, was fair and flash, as tempters mostly are,
She wore a strike-your-fancy sash; and loved a verbal spar.
She was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
She honed the art of self-promoting: “Me,” she said “for Me!”
But here’s the thing, of all, that touches most upon our wagging –
She loved her money very much, and sure was good at nagging.
So when the dreaded enemy approached her in frustration
And offered her a hefty fee for certain information
About her strong beloved and his energy and muscle,
She took to seek the grubby grand, and started up the tussle.
“I have a question, dear, I do, I hope it isn’t rude,
But how could one as strong as you be tethered and subdued?”
Well Samson, so it seemed, was fine and willing to be tied –
He said “My darling, use some twine that hasn’t fully dried.”
The Philistines in turn provided seven bits of string,
And lay in wait as Lilah glided in to do the thing.
But when she called the plotters out to catch her wily double,
He tossed away the string without the slightest bit of trouble!
He later told her “Use my scruffin’, fluffin’ hair for weaving,
And see the rough and tough and puffin’ power in me leaving.”
She probably felt the time was right to give his hair a groom,
And gladly strung it extra tight across her weaving loom.
But when he felt his shaggy head connected to some cloth,
He pulled apart the pin and thread, and flung the fabric off.
Another try, another fail, but ‘Lilah was progressing –
You’ll notice there her maiden sale in hair and whisker dressing.
And so she let her lasso fly towards a final ropin’ –
For speaking metaphoric-lie, her barber’s shop was open!
She simply had to get the gent – her patron number one –
To answer her equivalent to “How’d you like it done?”
“I beg you, dear, to tell me how you’re stronger than a lion.”
But Samson gave her nothin’ now – a-nothin’ was he buyin’.
Delilah, though, she nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged again,
As if she’d caught a cat and dragged it screaming through his brain,
At last her partner, worn and fraught, and sick to death of chidings –
As good as said “I’ll have it short around the back and sidings!”
Delilah gave her friends a wink, a dexter eyelid shut –
“We’ve only got to give, I think, his bloomin’ hair a cut!”
They hurried in to lend a hand, and brought the promised cash,
And gave the strong ‘un’s every strand a cold and ruthless slash.
And as they did the quick and shoddy, maladjusted shearing,
The strength inside our Samson’s body did a disappearing.
His hairiness had been the source of all his punch and vigour,
For with it came the blessed force of someone vastly bigger.
The Lord, in fact, had told his Mum and Dad at his conception,
To raise the little chum to be badly-groomed exception.
And if a razor never saw the skin upon his cranium,
He’d always have an inward braun of reinforced titanium.
But now the Phillies hauled him off for dark incarcerating,
And with a condescending scoff began the celebrating.
They merried by the thousand in the temple of an idol,
Til Samson, from the wretched din, was going suicidal.
But then they made an error, for they brought him in to mock ‘im,
Which gave the wounded warrior another chance to sock ‘em!
He asked the Lord to give him just a final little filler
Of power – then he yelled and thrust his hand against a pillar.
He pushed it down – another too – and made the hall collapse,
And almost, in a day, removed all Philly from the maps.
And so the Lord had used a bloke who wasn’t too finessed,
To foil a foe and fix his folk a phase of fearless rest.
The Banjo Bible 