Magnetic Poetry
Had a magnetic poetry set left over from Christmas. Debated whether creativity was boosted by the limited palette of words or this was a commercial cop-out from true creativity by forcibly requiring some form of it.
Someone at the Life! section of the Straits Times obviously thought the former and in a monkey-on-island way, conceived the idea of a magnetic poetry guest column. The first poem was published today: Colin Cheong's take on the tsunami. I've always been rather fond of the man personally as one of the few un-poncey, un-affected local writers. But this time, I was bursting with indignation at his blatant misrepresentation of God:
If not for the historicity of the Bible, I would be tempted to dismiss this as akin to another nice little Greek myth without the sex bits. But the external and internal evidence is too overwhelming to conclude anything other than that the worldview and creation account presented by the Bible is true and accurate in all respects.
Someone at the Life! section of the Straits Times obviously thought the former and in a monkey-on-island way, conceived the idea of a magnetic poetry guest column. The first poem was published today: Colin Cheong's take on the tsunami. I've always been rather fond of the man personally as one of the few un-poncey, un-affected local writers. But this time, I was bursting with indignation at his blatant misrepresentation of God:
Still Water
What moon could rip away a sea
to crush love in its shadow,
then void life from breast
to scream eternity?
You said no flood next,
yet Your finger rose a storm
to smear the wind
with the sordid smell of wet meat.
Why lie? I asked.
Did weak worship want for death?
But sun hot tongues lick bitter black;
the sky boils raw red.
Who sits to fiddle as they chant
Your will be done.
After I'd paced around for a bit and cooled off, I sat down to write CC a note on how "natural disasters" were actually caused by man's sin. The world started off perfect: there was no death or "natural disaster". God rightly ruled over man as his creator and man ruled over the earth and in turn, man ruled over the animals as established by God in his creation. Death only entered the world when man, in what 20/20 hindsight would term utter stupidity, attempted to usurp God's position as God and in so doing, broke the perfect relationship he had with God who gives life. And as man's relationship with God was wrecked, so in turn his relationship with the rest of creation was wrecked and so the earth now rebels against man as man rebelled and continues to rebel against God.What moon could rip away a sea
to crush love in its shadow,
then void life from breast
to scream eternity?
You said no flood next,
yet Your finger rose a storm
to smear the wind
with the sordid smell of wet meat.
Why lie? I asked.
Did weak worship want for death?
But sun hot tongues lick bitter black;
the sky boils raw red.
Who sits to fiddle as they chant
Your will be done.
If not for the historicity of the Bible, I would be tempted to dismiss this as akin to another nice little Greek myth without the sex bits. But the external and internal evidence is too overwhelming to conclude anything other than that the worldview and creation account presented by the Bible is true and accurate in all respects.
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Unresolvable discussions on the impact of magnetic poetry on creativity aside, it would be cool to write a poem explaining the gospel clearly and faithfully with just the basic magnetic poetry set. If you've got one, you can submit it for worldwide viewing here.
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