Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic

You don’t need to be religious
or to have seen The Omen
or appreciate early Iron Maiden recordings;
if, like me, Revelations leaves you
nonplussed- don’t despair, there’s still room
for the devil in your life.

Fire and brimstone? Swivel-headed girls
rasping fuck me Jesus? No, no.
It’s subtler than all that rubbish
and at first you’ll barely notice
how good it feels to cause
unnecessary suffering and walk away, whistling.

Then things escalate and you realise
you’re becoming aroused when others cry:
not just sexually (though that’s important)
but in ways hard to describe.
Like being drunk but very controlled.
Like being empty but not caring.

The process develops its own momentum
steamrolling your mind like an avalanche
absorbs an off-piste skiier. You’re
lost then, utterly lost but you
still have options. A paedophile ring;
shooting up a school; merchant banking.

They say the devil’s in the
detail but the opposite is true-
he sees only the bigger picture
leaving the mode of your damnation
entirely to you, the irony being
your attention is focused irrevocably elsewhere

On the little sixes that fizz
like champagne bubbles through a reality
you abjure, yet can’t let go:
love circles you like a shark.
You bleed in helpless tribute to
the light of the morning star.

06/06/06

Jon Hellier