"Satan’s Joke Book"

"Satan’s Joke Book"

In a library so fiery, the gilded candelabra sheds no light,

Satan in his cloak of sinful vermillion

peruses the archaic titles of relinquished interests of humanity.

Each bound by sweat and tears

With pages of expired loves and fruits of pride

the concluding pages gnawed away by the rats of hubris.

But it is not the tragic saga Satan is looking for.

His choice is sprawled open upon a Corinthian pedestal

spotlit by the pirouetting of flames.

Satan purrs with satisfaction

as his spindly fingers grope the pages loved by time.

The binding is no stranger to the tarantula of a hand that holds it.

He exits the infinite library of pain with the book in hand,

and with a cool lemonade and beach chair,

he perches on the black shore of the Lake.

The bitter waters facilitate the Man,

doggy-paddling to the nearly unattainable light of the world

where he may become oblivious to the Unknown.

His limp body rages through the water

with the strength of a saturated tissue

as ripples of black tear at him like fawning hounds.

And there is Satan throned, watching the spectacle of Man.

He licks his blistered lips

and turns his book open.

He runs his tendril of a finger over the text

and is delighted, as always,

with his deliciously extensive selection.

Craning his neck, he selects One.

It does not matter which,

they are all naked, struggling, and that makes him laugh.

“To you,” he heralds the One,

“I anoint thee with...social anxiety!”

And it was so.

One pitiful paddler after another:

“Cancer!” “Blindness!” “Epilepsy!”

Until there was no Man left untouched by Satan’s schadenfreude.

And Satan laughed with wild abandon

as he shut his joke book

and left the frenzy of humanity to hate themselves so naturally.