The Blue Devil in a Time Machine

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:

socialecologies