Zywa The Twists of the Serpent

Darkness
Rumbling in the distance
The wind is picking up
As it gets light, the wind dies down
There is a large tent
Four shadows of women in the tent


Lilith comes out as a belly dancer and makes graceful movements with her arms; while she lightly addresses the people in the hall, she continues to dance a little
[1-188]


How do you tell something?
How do you tell your children
for example, where
grandpa and grandma come from?

Cain invented God
God had drawn Grandpa out of the clay
and made Grandma from a rib of Adam
Cain didn't know how it worked yet

Man's small trunk actually
came later, as an addition
to the female-human, and now that we
know that, we must call it what it is:

God created the female-human
and with an adaption
the male-human as well
No more man and wo-man!

No ish and ish-sha
And while we're at it
we'll also do something
about the use of the words

fairy and whore; you could
expand them to
man-fairy and man-whore
bi- and non-bi-fairy and -whore

trans-fairy and trans-whore -
there's no end to it, but personally
I prefer to keep it simple:
no more fairy and whore!

I do not exist to be looked at
but not seen
and I am certainly
not a man-nequin, a little man!

Lilith pauses for a moment
It has become lighter in the tent by now

Fairies are simply spirits
So call them that: spirits
And male-humans lie down
next to a female-human more easily

than vice versa, so in practice
there are more male-whores
than female-whores
Many more male-humans rape

At the word rape, Emzara looks up
While Lilith continues speaking, Emzara stands up
and walks through the tent

a female-human than vice versa
They are the whores!
For female-humans, the term is
discriminatory, stigmatising, unusable!

Male-humans are whores
if they are looking for an opportunity
to stick their aroused little trunk
into another human

Emzara looks intently at Lilith
While Lilith continues speaking, Emzara walks towards her
She sits down close to her

Whores are humans, yeah
who have many sexual partners
Call them humpers -
male, female, whatever

Humper is a word that is usable
for everyone, just like the word human
In society
everyone is: human!

Only at home
does a gender difference remain
At home, we hold the words
father and mother in high regard

due to the biological difference
in bringing children into the world
and in the functioning
of mothers and fathers

Short speaking break

How do you tell something?
Which words are correct?
Cain invented God
as our father-mother

Adam and I were humans
and then, when I was ready
and I let him come inside me
for the first time

and subsequently Cain was born
our lives changed!
We enjoyed our baby
but the time of paradise was over

From then on, Adam often went alone
I had taught him to pay attention
to the locations of the fruit trees
and to trust his nose

to know where the fruit is ripe
And I had taught him
to get up earlier
than the others, to go out

in the moonlight
to be the first
just a little further away
the one who picks the ripe fruit

He was not entirely
satisfied with that, he felt
his pride wounded
And I remember that he didn't dare

to eat a fruit, but
because I didn't get sick from it
I was able to tempt him
to take a bite

Still, he got angry
instead of thanking me
Later he came around, but he never
considered fruit-picking hís job

Cain soon noticed that
and then came up with paradise
with the tree and the serpent
and God's prohibition

because once you have God in your head
you can't get him out
you always have to invent a sequel
like the story of the apple

Now it is Rebekah who looks up and sits closer

or the fig, a ripe fruit
with the serpent that tempted us
and the knowledge we gained
and the journey we made

Adam walked ahead
He knew the way, he said
And I kept my mouth shut
He just followed the river

When Cain himself had children
and wanted to explain to them
why we kept moving
he invented an angel

who had sent us away
to discover the world
and to take care of the animals
and the plants everywhere

And by the time of Methuselah
his grandchildren had expanded
the story even further
for if Adam and I were the first

to have done something wrong
then apparently it also had to be
told who was the first
to have killed a human

Not an animal, to eat
at a feast, and in winter
when there was little other food
No, a human!

Miriam shakes her head
and gives Rebekah a meaningful look

And that was just pinned
on our son!
Because Cain was an only child
he was assigned a brother

They didn't invent anything particularly
remarkable about that brother, he is
merely a cardboard figure
who has no lines

for his role is simply
to be murdered
For instruction and entertainment
It did create a problem, though

A matter of honour
For the narrator
did not want to be descended
from a murderer!

So, alright, he invented
another brother!
What do facts matter
in a story?

They called our third son Seth
He was assigned Cain's life
but without the fratricide
After all, he was only 'born' after that

And now it was he
who cultivated trees
beans and grasses
with edible seeds

Now it was he
who dug canals
and built a house of clay
with a sturdy roof

Now it was he
who made tools
and built beds
while Cain's descendants

lived elsewhere, although they
did have virtually the same names
That is a negligence in the story
Why not change the names?

Fortunately, the Flood provided
a solution: Cain's offspring
drowned, and of Seth's descendants
Noah was saved by God

At the word Noah, Emzara looks up
While Lilith continues speaking, she stands up
and goes to stand next to Lilith

Thus, the sequel coils its way
through the facts like a snake
being a poetic summary
of evolution, from nothing

to man, from wandering
to a fixed dwelling place
with customs and rules of conduct
until they are shaken up

Lilith puts an arm around Emzara

EMZARA [189-200] [E12]
A fixed dwelling place...
We only had that in the boat
We were stuck
while it drifted around

Customs, habits...
They changed in the boat
We couldn't go anywhere
and became stiff with boredom

Paradise seemed lost for good
You have known the real paradise
What was that like?
Where was it?

LILITH [201-212] [L200]
That was when we were young
and thought of each other all the time
When we still lived carefree
Without worries about the future

of our child
It was not a special place
only: a fertile place
It was a way of life

Being together
Enjoying together
Harmony
Peace

EMZARA [213-400] [E200]

We Nomads
see paradise primarily as
a life in peace
in a land without enemies

A free land, spacious
with grassy meadows
and nut and fruit trees
I know three, paradises

One in the north:
Between the Two Rivers
One in the south:
the River Delta

And one in the middle:
here, where we are
the Lowlands
which were cursed

but still a paradise, ultimately
our country, unfortunately cursed
by ourselves - you couldn't imagine
anything more absurd!

Of course it was wrong
What am I saying! Dead!
I wanted to be dead!
My own son, no less!

Like a snake he slipped
into the inner tent, dragged me
to the bed
and wriggled out of his skin

Excited, he tugged
at my clothes, forced me
to undress and looked
at me furiously

to silence me
Besides, no one was home
and I didn't dare
tell my husband

Women are cast out for less
and I couldn't do it
I was nothing anymore, dead
I wanted to be dead

Where did I get the energy
to get up and wash myself
make dinner
and pretend

that nothing was wrong
and it was over
and that he wouldn't come back?
If only he had...

Eventually, it ended
His brothers caught him
and told their father
Who did nothing

Not even when
I turned out to be pregnant
All those months of tension
Growing anger in his belly

The baby had the same face
the same build as Ham
What certainty could that provide
regarding paternity?

But to Noah it was clear
He raged, shouted
savage sounds
so as not to curse

but he did put a curse
well considered, at the table -
the men and I in a circle
and the baby on my lap

He ignored Ham
and struck him at his worst
by pointing to the little one
and saying very calmly:

Canaan and all his descendants
will serve the other families
the people of Shem, the people of Japheth
It is a punishment from God

What else could he do?
His honour had been tarnished
and he was old, not as hard
as during the Flood

Then he stood there
up on the deck, alone
and he turned a deaf ear
to his brothers and sisters

He turned a deaf ear
to his niece who herself
immersed her little baby
in the rising water

which was up to her lips
The cattle and the birds
had already drowned
It was a punishment from God

We were inside the boat
hearing water bubbling
from time to time, last breaths
Of people we know

My parents were too old
They wouldn't have been able
to handle the journey to us, and Noah
did not think they were serious enough

But my little sisters
My sweet little sisters,...
He was rock-hard
when they stood there on the shore

calling out to be allowed to come with us
And yes, I have never been able to talk
about it with my daughters-in-law
Their families, that is such a sensitive matter

Never, definitely never again
would they see their family
as if they themselves had truly been
abducted to a new world

He was harsh. He explained it
It was impossible to save everyone
The boat wasn't that big, after all
And with whom do you draw the line?

Besides, it wasn't his idea
It had to be that way because of God
It was Him who wanted to start over
A new world, as it were

He did tell me
about that niece
As a curiosity
which you observe

from a distance, somewhat
like I think God
views people
with wonder

I don't know, maybe
I would rather have been there

rather drowned than live
with this memory

Well, God's plan failed
that idiotic idea
of a new beginning
a clean slate

Noah made a covenant
with him, but our sons
and their wives, the seven of us:
were we a clean slate?

I feel guilty
complicit in all those dead
all those people to whom we
did not reach out a hand

and if I had died back then
in that Flood, no matter how terrible
I would have been better off, and
that with Ham would not have happened

The curse was, of course, passed on
to the grandchildren
those of Shem and Japheth
And they considered themselves good people

To spare me, Grandma, and my decency
they beat around the bush
about what exactly had happened
In their story, they limited

the shame to seeing
Noah's nakedness
and it's a disgrace
they placed the blame for it on him!

As if it is touching
that he, the great
father of mankind
would have been drinking!

Besides, he has never
been a farmer
with a vineyard!
But children believe everything

And with this story
Shem and Japheth made themselves
better people
than their pious father

All lies!
For my own good too
they said, yes, if you are the kind of man
for whom women are temptresses

In the best families
rape does not occur
and if it does happen
the woman must be guilty

Guilty, even if she is your mother
And now I sit here, outside the city
in the land of Canaan
my youngest son

Jerusalem, city of peace
it is called, oh, may that
not bring war! For
you cannot undo a curse


REBECCA, the youngest of the four women
Jerusalem, Jerusalem...
Peace is not the core
of this city on the Rock
Here is Hell!

Down below, in the gorge of the Valley
of Hinnom, there is the gate to Hell!
Hence all those ancient tombs
Close to the underworld

Here the kings Ahaz and Manasseh
came to make a sacrifice
when they went to wage
their umpteenth war

They offered sacrifices to the heavenly King
so that He would grant them victory
as earthly kings
In full regalia they came to monitor

the construction of the long trench
and its filling with dry branches
which were set ablaze along the entire line
just before the ceremony

Parents had designated one
of their children, a son or a daughter
to endure the ordeal and run
through the trench from beginning to end

The kings had to
set the example, had to
designate one of their sons
even though they knew the outcome

The participants burned alive
and their blood flowed away
into the chasm, into the underworld
Burning dead, that is Hell

The prophets made accuses
but it took centuries
for the valley to become a garbage dump
to prevent the sacrifices

And even then, the corpses
of criminals were dumped
on the refuse and set on fire
Burning dead, that is Hell

233
EMZARA []
297 LILITH []
305 EMZARA []
309 REBECCA
329 LILITH []
393 REBECCA
397 LILITH []
401 REBECCA
417 LILITH []
421 REBECCA
437 LILITH []
465 REBECCA
469 LILITH []
477 REBECCA
478 EMZARA []
482 MIRIAM []

490 LILITH []
498 MIRIAM []

499 LILITH []
519 EMZARA []
523
MIRIAM []

539 EMZARA []
555
LILITH []
559 MIRIAM []

563 LILITH []
591 MIRIAM []

595 XX LILITH []
647 EMZARA []
651 MIRIAM []
663 EMZARA []
675 REBECCA []
679 LILITH []
687 REBECCA []
691 MIRIAM []
695 Het was een onzeker leven
Poem V0101
Amsterdam, 2026-08-31

Keyword: Stories: tradition / order 
 
 

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