by Steven Craig Hickman “I’m a blue devil in a time-machine: run-a-way child, run-a-way devil goin’ to get his due today, child!” – graffiti on a prison cell wall circa. 2153 B.C.E. The stranger came to town today. Nobody knows from where; he’s got this funny look in his eye but nobody seems to care; he seems to stare right through you, like you was a ghost, or ghoul. Someone said he took up with Rita down at the red light tavern; and he’s been seen at night carrying a briefcase and a cane; some say he’s up till dawn, singing; but no one will blame him, because he’s the Sleeper Man, and his eyes never close. Today he came to me and asked me to tea, and I, like an idiot, said yes, indeed. I’m standing here in the dark watching the last car go away, not knowing if he’ll come or stay. At nine I feel a cold hand upon my slender neck, a slow pulsation and a boon. I feel a knife explode. Now I know who he is, but don’t ask me to resist; this dark love is real and true. Now if white lie be told: I just tell the girls he’s just a slick ‘blue devil in a time-machine’, a gypsy joker, a fool who fell for me; and now he’s slipped below where all good children go, and angels desecrate; to that vacuous paradise this side of hell, where time stands still and we like lover’s spin in cruel delight, a respite from flesh and bone our wedding vows undone, bestowed to the gray stones below the threshold, where that black world that is our alien life erupts. taken from:
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PoetryArchives
January 2018
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