Slave of the Serpent and the Servant

Author's Note: I don't write poetry... At all. So this is an extreme oddity and something you should all feel privileged to witness.

Ok, maybe not.

It's rough, it's iffy, and it's obvious that I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to this whole "rythym" and "structure" business. I'll stick to fiction in the future, no doubt.

But this is something that, for whatever reason, started telling itself to me awhile back. It came in small bits and pieces over time until finally the rest of it decided to pour out onto a Word document.

I guess God's just gotta shake things up in my head every now and then. Make me do something crazy. But it works out in the end, as life in general has a way of doing...

What will come, will come. We just have to meet it when it does.

This is the way it was meant to be.

- Britton Peele

The Slave of the Serpent and the Servant

Once there was a wunderkind
A jack of every trade.
And all these skills had served him well
So long as this man prayed.

But a Serpent ruled his world
With violence, sin, and brawn
Who couldn’t stand to see him rise
So he would make this queen a pawn.

This man’s potential haunted him
He could never make a choice
Saw truth in every argument
And couldn’t hear God’s voice.

In search for deeper meaning
He fell deeper into sin,
And with this sin came sorrow
The likes in which he hadn’t been.

The Serpent had a Servant
Who came as black and grey.
He said, “I can make you happy, sir
If I just come out and play.”

So the Servant drove the Puppet mad
Blurring lines between friend and foe.
Made the Puppet act out normally
So no one else would know.

He was helped while on his road
But seen only as betrayed.
Though many chances he was given
His life became worn and frayed.

A Prophet came from far away
To set the Puppet straight,
The Prophet pleaded for his soul
But may have been too late.

One day the Puppet was torn to shreds
The Servant told him, “See?
They cannot care or understand,
Just place your faith in me.”

But the Puppet, he still had a heart
Though now beaten, black and blue.
The Servant wasn’t happy, and said,
“Can’t have your cake and eat it too!”

The Puppet was found oh so torn
Filled both with hate and love.
Screaming ever louder
For help from up above.

But the Serpent and the Servant
Had him locked in evil ways.
Until he strengthened and escaped
He would be destined for the blaze.

If he listens to the Servant
He’ll consign himself to death.
Lies of ever happiness
Will be his dying breath.

His mind is splintered, fractured, sure,
Bouncing off the walls.
But what he often fails to realize
Is that every angel falls.

Deeper, darker, deeper still
Into the black abyss.
Far from friends, from Lord, from happy thoughts
Far flung from lover’s kiss.

More heartbreak came, from ones once dear
He cried, “They cannot understand!”
He’d give up, scorn, patronize
Not address the matter at hand.

He looked close at everyone
And could find naught but lies,
But he saw them through tinted lens
And not through heaven’s eyes.

For if he would glance closer
He would find more love and hope,
But he wasn’t close enough to see
Not through the Servant’s scope.

He looked at lives around him
And couldn’t see their point,
What filled his friends with happiness
Felt like a knife into his joint.

As each day passed and misery grew
Hope wore more and more thin,
Descent, to him, wasn’t an “if”
It was rather an issue of “when.”

Whether or not he finds the light
Is not for friends to say,
Forced to merely stand and watch
And hope he finds his way.

The lives they lead may cause him pain
And confuse him further still,
But they know their lives have meaning
This ride is more than just a thrill.

And so do – choose life and live
Pursuing chosen path,
They hope their friend will do the same
Or suffer the Serpent’s wrath.

He walks alone – or so he feels
Seeking what is true,
Voices always telling him,
“The world ends with you.”