I wrote this Christmas Eve, or, technically, very very early Christmas morning, having gotten home from mass. The reading and sermon were Rev chapter 12. That bit with the fighting and slaying of the dragon. It was being read and I was disproportionatly excited by knowing what it was and being able to sign this to the soprano sitting opposite me who was wondering why on earth there was a reading about demons and dragons and not shepherds in a field.

The vicar had definitly been on something, the sermon was muchly weird and non sensical and utterly not the sort of thing you say on the birthday of baby jesus.

Anyway, I came home and wrote this. I think this might have had more to do with my previous incarnation of Revelations 12 (and why I recognised it during the service) than the one that night. As I write this I'm remembering that that incarnation was during the BBC1 series Apparitions which was really rather good. Of course, now I have no idea why that is of any relevence to the poem either.

In other words, I have no idea about why this poem got this title, but it did, so it must have made some sense at some point.

Perhaps I should go and read some dead evangelists recollections from his acid trip to find out.