The Devil's Grin

The Devil's grin
Is a gaping crater
A deathly hole
Where light rays
Stretch to hold hands
And are swallowed whole.
His laughter the echo
Of stone on bone
Grinding gears of eternity
The certainty of cold

The Devil smiles at me
In spine-chilling moments
I stray footloose
From the rocky path
I can hear his raspy breath
A person being sawed in half
No mirrors, no illusions
Just the certainty of gravity.

The Devil hides, a tiger
With baited breath
And rotting teeth
Stalking, creeping, seething death
Straining at the fraying leash
Snapping like a broken bone
Screaming like a broken heart
Raging like a broken home
He more than all of these
And less

The Devil talks in slippery lies
Eels that bite and paralyse
In poison slowly gripping
Your soul. Drips, dripping
Bleeds you weak and soon for dead
Takes up rent inside your head

And oh the laughing
The hollow echo of stone on bone
Grinding gears of eternity
The clammy cold of certainty,
In the universe. You. Are.
Alone.

The Devil looms over me
Like a mountain to an ant
Only
It's not me he has to beat;
God
Shakes him like a rat
And he flees squealing to the black
All hate, and baited, rotting breath.