The devil gave him a trumpet
And told him to play
When he thought the honest man would come out on top.
It's still in the case.

There are stairways built to the sun.
He buries newborns in the desert
Returning them to the earth
So they can be born again
Or so he reasons.
The levers and valves that run your world will not turn without him.
It's a car wreck
But he has been thrown free.

His teeth are gears in the patchwork machinations
Of the clock of fire,
For he has reached past petty morality.
Beyond the gibbering, omnipotent masses hurling
and hurled, dually
through the saturnine dark,
in the space of One
And the mind of many.

"No one will read my poetry", he says to the flywheels and pendulums,
"It is not accessible.
There are no puppies and love.
No centered and poignant disappointment,
Or easy emotions."
The ironwork rattles,
"There are no snakes in your heart
They are in your mind."

"Run me dry with blood machines", he says.

His ribs hide no serpentine thought.
They are ninety-amp cables,
Calcified by your condemnations
Though he is the executor
Of your will.
He protects you with the inferno.

If he drilled out their hands
You would call him monster.
If he loved them as fathers,
You would call him worse.

10/28/2012

Author's Note: Inspired by a variety of sources.

Posted on 10/28/2012
Copyright © 2025 Bertram Sparagmos