Chess with Lucifer : Iambic Poem

Chess with Lucifer

By Cameron Byerly

Published in St. John College's The Gadfly January 12th, 2016

Part I

Your God and I sat Somewhere Else,

and played a game of Chess,

Beneath our pieces, gently pushed,

Earth groaned with man’s new stress.

We watched and planned for Times to Come,

And learned of Deathless Laws.

We pondered deep, we spoke and wrote,

And presently, took pause.

“Oh King of Pain, foul Lucifer,”

he called me such, in jest.

“This game of ours, again, is doom’d,

Man falls just as the rest.”

“In all our play, the pieces rise,

And mine the board beneath,

Their nest, on which their lives rely,

Shall spoil ‘tween their teeth.”

“Same Will that rose them ‘bove the Beasts,

Such pluck as we admire.

Is too entrench'd to cease in time,

They’re doomed in their desire.”

“Agreed I am, oh Lord of Light!”

I called him such, to mock.

“Might I suggest new spectacle?

We crave some novel shock.”

“In lieu of this repeated play,

I wish to try a bet.

Instead of watch them fall this way,

Let me create new threat.”

“I think I may, if given chance,

Destroy man’s clemency:

If dressed as you, with three short words,

Pervert their destiny.

“I’d give Commandment fresh to all,

Such as they never knew.

And they shall kill themselves outright...

Once they accept it’s true.

“You doubt my skills, O brother mine?

I shall complete this deed.

And when I win, allow me this;

Next game we play, I lead.”

And God laugh’d loud, and said to me;

“What you suggest intrigues...

I have great doubt you’ll pull this stunt.

They've borne such grand fatigues.”

“You claim you merely need three words?

Like Job, I must comply.

I grant you leave, go speak your trick,

We’ll see if they should die.”

His words upset me, so I turned,

I left to test mankind.

I’d prove him wrong, my brother God,

I’d tear apart your mind.

When I had left, God chuckled soft,

I know this recently.

He’d guessed my words, and said aloud:

“Complete your irony.”

Part II

I came in Light upon mankind,

And stole my brother’s claim.

They looked upon me as their God,

I found I liked that name.

I looked below, I shook their sky,

And spoke The Words to all.

A gasp did roll across the Earth…

And lo, began the Fall.

The nations fell within the day,

Their leaders fled in fear.

Relief swept through your yearning mass,

My words were quite severe.

Who bother’d now respect their boss?

All Those In Charge had lied.

I’d ripped the spine from culture’s back,

And man was unified.

The jail that held man nine to five,

Was now an empty hall,

The money was not needed now,

It’d never been at all

My words, the end of how things were,

The answer to man’s prayer,

Had set them free, and broke their world,

I told them ‘Life is Fair.’

Part III

What reason now could hold excuse,

For lean to work for fat?

My words had cured the heart of this,

Such balance ended that.

Unspoken Rules, man came to see,

On which the Cruel relied.

Came down like walls of Jericho,

The rich were now deprived.

Those factories, once filled and loud,

Lay empty of their swine.

I thought that this would cause collapse.

I thought the bet was mine.

I'd had intent to break mankind,

Mine int’rests purely cruel.

Yet something I had not foreseen

Caused God to win our duel.

This time they coined The New Dark Age,

So poorly did they see.

This was not true, the light was lit,

They’d never been so free.

Man went and found his older life,

Returned to nature’s ways.

New communes rose, those healthy tribes,

they set my plans ablaze.

This grand new life, now far less cruel,

Allowed the Earth to heal,

These clans now worked for good of all,

This was their world ideal.

In one stroke I, without intent,

Had solved two plights of man:

Now no man was above his peer,

And Earth breath’d new lifespan.

While man had lost much of his world,

At least he had survived.

At older pace, all life was doomed.

Your Eden had arrived.

And there, One Man, who’d once been rich,

Gave cause for my last grin.

He lost his wealth, he had no home,

He’d practiced every sin.

He climbed atop the highest peak,

And shouted at the sky.

It seemed his type could find no place,

and he had come to die.

This gifted fool, who’d lost his world,

Had proven too headstrong.

He cut his throat, and bleeding, wrote,

his three words, ‘God is Wrong’.