Satanic (The Devil You Ignored) by Richard Paez
His smell: December leaves
smoldering, shed feathers
in wet places drying, old rooms
unopened, and the sea:
dreaming and drowning in sand.
The Devil plays
(in salt), the Devil splays
(in a cove beneath the bend
where the waves spray songs) asking:
“can't you see the beauty
in what's been left behind?”
Every particle belonged
to something once – remainders
remain and His lips,
swollen in salt, remind us:
even God can't divide by zero. And
We're all spilt milk,
and the sea's ink is our own:
tinted, we play solitaire
in chorus, chromosomes
in courtships pretending
to play by rules: always
falling inward, the outward-falling
tide – just enough gravity
to almost keep us in pace
with the inertia
that almost keeps us in space:
a little lost with every orbit
and after billions of years
the end result is just
another revolution – tell me:
when was the last time
we overthrew anything?
There was a time
when the Devil in me
preserved in salt
could count every cell
you ever occupied –
every cell in every organ
you deployed against the world:
every aggregate you ever were
was fascinating to me
even as your armies
rallied against me:
I'd rather have been the Devil you hated
than the Devil you ignored. 12/27/2009 Posted on 12/28/2009 Copyright © 2025 Richard Paez
Member Comments on this Poem |
Posted by Traci Mabats on 12/29/09 at 01:29 AM So good it's evil :) Sorry, slap me. That was terrible. Good write Richard. |
Posted by Beth K Hannah on 02/17/10 at 05:37 PM reminds me of a band called mewithoutyou. very good |
Posted by A. Reed on 02/02/11 at 02:30 AM Ridiculously amazing, you never disappoint because you are truth. |
Posted by George Hoerner on 03/08/13 at 11:05 PM Note that I'm a 'believer' but I suspect if there is a 'god' somewhere he could devide by zero. All he has to do is change the definition. Zero and infinity are mirror images of each other so of one exists so does the other. |
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