...And The Devil Walks With Him
He comes alive, and the devil walks with him,
Burning through a city strewn with blood and wine and ruin,
‘Cross broken roofs
On cloven hoof
He stumbles t’wards the dawn,
Groping to ignite his tongue and scar it with his song.
He finds his fight, and the devil stands with him,
Drowning him in wreckage and the ghosts of his misgivings,
The puppeteer
With broken mirror,
Turns him loose upon the night,
To choke each star in bones and tar and burn the naked sky.
He stacks his lot, and the devil laughs with him,
Around his neck, are hung the lucky horseshoes he was given,
Each one he takes
To raise the stakes
With all his hand on red,
The dice collide and crash beside the reckless and the dead.
He knows him now, the devil within him,
Whose sultry style of snake-oil smile promised passage to the living,
With open hands,
He calls to land,
‘The Styx is the way out’,
On rotten boards, they push from shore, and catch the current south.
