The Game

The Devil resides between layers of chocolate cake,
moist, yielding, the promise of melting in my mouth.
Hunkered down in creamy, dark ganache,
he knows I am weak.

He lurks down dark alleys and lonely streets,
shadowy, making noises unseen.
Dredging up feelings of fear and uncertainty,
I hesitate, cower, and turn toward more traveled roads.

He waits beyond steep mountain curves,
sheer and achingly beautiful.
I grip the door of the car harder, looking straight ahead
as he laughs at the scenery I have missed.

It is all a game to him,
To overcome or be overcome.

The Devil

I sometimes feel the Devil
rides across Planet Earth                                                     
looking for points of easy entry.
Like a hacker probing the system for flaws               

looking for the unlocked backdoor,
Diablo works day and night
to access our vulnerabilities.

I, have been made dimpled from all my probes.
Skin stretched from point to point
in a constellation of scars.
Just as one puncture heals another one appears.
Satan knows well my systems peculiarities,
and exploits them quite elegantly, quite easily.


The world seems to be splatters and dots of red
and I wonder when enough blood will be spilt.
Attracted to weakness, The Prince of Darkness
(seeking his own safe place just as mortals do)
flies to the house with the Crimson porch light,
crouches in the corner, and silently waits for me to walk by.

Downstream

She told me she was a stone,
smooth and tumbled,
worn down by steady currents so gentle, yet insistent and powerful.

Her crags and crevices abraded away,
bashed and broken,
pounded by constant forces so strong, yet glacially slow.

Until one day there was nothing,
no protrusions to catch on, to wedge her in place,
and she was smooth,
tumbling endlessly downstream.