That Bloke from Hell

‘Are my thoughts collected?

No, they’re all over the place as you can tell,

if you’re wondering about the smell?

Sorry!  That’s me, the Anti-Christ…The Beast…

you know? That bloke from Hell.

One has to use brimstone to keep up appearances

it’s expected you see,

it’s kind of like an abstract association

so you know it’s me…

err…call me cynical, and I don’t mean to wax lyrical,

but don’t you think the ‘Lesser Key of Solomon’

conjuration should have been critical?

No wonder my head’s spinning.

Satanists!

you people really are incorrigible

you’ve always been a little kitsch,

never mind, I thought the gerbil sacrifice was a bitch.

Right! What do you want? ...sorry! What’s that…?

You’d like to learn to spell?

Oh! I do beg your pardon,

you’d like to learn about Hell?

What is Hell?

Except a metaphor for your existence,

you make it up as you go along.

Such is your persistence

that you write about it in books and song.

Dante called it an inferno, a circus of the circular

with lots of demons having fun

in the centre it’s hotter than the sun.

There’s even frozen lake called ‘Cocytus’

with lots of souls trapped in ice,

Me! I call it home, and I think it’s rather nice.

Heaven, is the human utopia; it’s where God resides

and goody two-shoe-types who do no wrong,

The kind of people, you used to see on ‘Going for a Song’

It makes you feel good about yourselves as you go about your lives.

Hell, however, is where you go when you’ve

drowned some kittens or murdered your wives,

a place where I allegedly torture your souls with red-hot knives.

Don’t kid yourselves; it’s all an illusion, Honest! 

Take it from someone, who’s in the know,

who really gets your soul when its time to go?

Have you ever thought that him and me

are one and the same?

And that you’re pathetic existence

is just some futile game?

Sorry…?  What’s that you say?

You’ve heard that one before?

My friend, you will soon be knocking at my door.

You think I come here to lie and deceive?

That’s your choice, I never asked you to believe,

but I was summoned for consultation

and though I do sympathise with your frustration.

Never let it be said

that I don’t appease those who may soon be dead?

If you really want to know…

I’m just a figment of your imagination,

a cerebral creation,

a sign of your own common indignation.

Not a raging demon out to get your soul…

although, you never can tell,

especially with me…That bloke from Hell.’

 P. Williams© 2000&06