Free On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer by Rohan Kriwaczek

was His, all that below our feet, was mine
    And You guys dancing on the boundary with Your new-fangled Free
    Will.
    â€œWell, I wasn’t interested in You at all to start with
    Frankly, I just didn’t give a damn
    I was busy in the core, smelting down my metal ores
    To build foundations for the realm I call a home
    â€œAnd He seemed to be quite happy with His playthings
    As You pranced about picking berries and hunting boar
    But then I heard You come a-scratching on the roof of my foundations–
    You were pilfering my precious metal ores
    â€œSo that was the first curse that I sent You
    For You never realised that these things were mine
    And no matter what You made, be it elegant or fierce
    It would follow my intentions in good time
    â€œEvery broach became a beacon for my Vices
    Each arrowhead a channel for my will
    Attracting Pride and Envy, Greed and Lust and Wrath
    Oh, so effortlessly was Your future sealed
    â€œAnd up there on His throne He saw it coming
    And I think He quite enjoyed the little game
    For I heard Him laughing smugly as He tinkered with His toys
    Inventing something new to help You on Your way
    â€œAnd so He gave You Beauty, and the artfulness to catch it
    And to free it from a block of wood, or stone
    And, to be fair, You caught on quickly, with Your pigments and designs
    And I could feel You slipping further from my realm
    â€œSo I pondered and considered and constructed
    Until slowly I devised the perfect trap:
    An elaborate concoction called Religion, in a hundred
    Different drafts, scattered right across the map
    â€œAnd every draft had its own unlikely stories
    And every story had its heroes and its damned
    And in Your tongue, I called Him God, And I called myself The Devil
    But that was flattery on both counts, You understand.
    â€œHe gave You Faith, but I gave You Delusion
    He gave You Love, but it was I who gave You Lust
    He gave You untold riches in the next life, or so he said
    But I gave You gold, and in gold You can immediately trust
    â€œHe gave You Contentment, but I gave You Glory
    He gave You Restraint, but I gave You Desire
    He gave You the quiet satisfaction of being one with Yourself
    But I gave You Adventure, Invention, Ambition and Fear
    â€œHe gave You Music to seduce You from my passions
    I gave You Writing to contain Your wildest fancies –
    He turned my writing into poetry, I turned his Music into Dance
    And so We pulled and pushed across the weary centuries
    â€œSo He and I, like spiteful playmates, spiked the potion
    With ever more exotic complications
    Until the mixture grew too rich to drink, too thick to pour
    And bubbled mischievously with explosive implications
    â€œThen We retreated, and We watched, and We waited
    We had agreed there would be no more interference
    For the scene had been well set, and the game was now afoot
    And We gambled on the outcome with great impatience
    â€œAnd how We smiled to see You tending to Your talents
    Distilling many powerful notions from the mire
    For the rest was up to You, and Your brilliance shining through
    Would leave us gasping both in Awe and in Despair
    â€œFor it never was a game of Good and Evil
    You could never draw its lines in Black and White
    There were never simple choices; but a thousand different voices
    Each one calling “Follow me” into the night
    â€œAnd many of You led, and still more of You followed
    And the thing that You call Culture soon evolved
    But with Culture came Division, with Division came Derision
    And so the story of Your Becoming slowly unfolds:
    â€œEvery temple was built upon the blood of cousins
    Each palace was stained with greed’s betrayal
    And Your cities’ bold foundations crushed the graves of many nations
    As You congratulated Yourselves with vainglorious tales
    â€œFor War it was that begat Civilisation,
    And Civilisation it was that begat War
    And the two danced hand in hand across the Millennia,
    Spreading Beauty and Disaster