Demon

I’ve been around ten thousand years or more
(who remembers things as dull as time?)
and in my age have seen such crime
that crows would blink and blush, a whore
cry “etiquette!” I’ve seen a desert-dweller kill
his own brother, for gold sewn into his saddle.

I’ve seen a Pope rape and molest. A chill
sweep down a modern street as holy twaddle,
to justify sin, strives to make sense of a girl
shot dead. Her bicycle lay in the street,
the ribbons on the handlebars like wheat,
still dancing when stirred by the wind. The twirl
of hair about a bloody wound delivered by
a gangster’s firearm. I laugh and laugh and
laugh, don’t you? The great joke is the irony.

You clothe your frail flesh, you tie ribbons
to your children’s bikes, you elect your popes
and craft gold coins and all of it melts
before pain, before my stony grin. What God
would let you suffer thus? And wouldn’t it be fine
if you laughed too? And killed, and scored,
and maimed just like the animal you are?