I met a prince last night,
Great prince Stolas of Hell,
An avian being on stilted legs,
A humble guise for royalty,
He flew,
Crown and all,
From the pages of the Ars Goetia,
The book of demons,
This was no bitter spirit though,
He meant no harm,
He brought not brimstone,
But knowledge and teaching,
He taught me of herbs and jewels,
Of the stars in the firmament,
Lessons spun in infernal tongue,
And then he was gone,
Like the rustles of charred pages.
The people and clergy preach righteousness,
Blame all evil on some fallen angel,
As if all malice is inflicted upon them,
Coming from humanity though,
It drips with hypocrisy,
Like drool from a rabid dogs mouth,
It’s a deficit in responsibility,
Man does not approve of the devils work,
But it was they who gave him the job,
Gave him his horns,
With their idle hands and dark thoughts,
Arms deals and genocides,
But alas,
I say this not to absolve Lucifer,
Simply to enlighten,
That in all his infernal majesty,
He is but an accomplice,
And we are on his shoulder.
There is tell of a book,
An evil lexicon,
A book of dark lore,
Wisdom that was hidden for a reason,
Foreboding chants heard within its closed spine,
Bound with leather a little too familiar,
It seems to throb as if alive,
Animated by some foul dogma,
Its pages are a parade of atrocities,
Chapter after chapter of malice,
There are spells and rituals aplenty,
Devilry and runes galore,
It calls to the dreams of the mad,
It wants to be read,
To be liberated,
Though gnostics and warlocks are drawn to it,
Are they claiming knowledge?
Or are they moths to a flame?
I find myself brought to waking,
Not by the grievance of the sun,
But by pressure and a presence,
While the rooms scent becomes sulphur,
An unsettling presence,
Pushing down on my ribs like a boulder,
Not enough to terminally suffocate,
But enough to torture all the same,
A petite form on my chest with the intangible weight of hell,
I am held in a form of wakeful stasis,
Forced to lock eyes with this imp,
Twin orbs of magma and malice,
It grins at its own cruel game,
Hissing in tongues,
Guffawing at each breath I strain outward,
This is no night terror I tell you,
No hallucination,
But a very real and very spiteful nightly ritual,
By a demon of sleep.
As they say,
The face is a masquerade mask,
And the eyes are windows to the soul,
But windows can be boarded up and blockaded,
And a masks purpose is to deceive,
You never know the intentions within,
The bad aura that permeates its design,
The gentlest smile can hold the most umbrage,
A held stare can be pure amorous obfuscation,
Cordial words can hide poison within,
The back of your skull often suspects something,
A defence mechanism for your peace of mind,
That sixth sense hints at hidden danger,
You’ll wish you had heeded the warnings,
That imperceptible lightning of negativity in the air,
The bad vibes,
Rancor hovering about an angel.
You see this creature atop my shoulder?
This fiend of mana,
This decrepit homunculus,
This breathing effigy of a devil,
Neither feminine nor masculine,
Something akin to an insect blended with a raven,
Be not afraid,
For it is beholden to me,
It is my familiar,
My arcane assistant,
Summoned to support occult exertions,
Clutching my nape with bestial claws,
Its feral eyes help seeing mystical patterns,
Its hand able to weave magicks beyond mortal ken,
As abominable as this thing appears,
It was created to serve,
To aid,
A sorcerers best ally.
What turns a man into a demon?
What is it that breeds evil?
Is it a grim childhood?
The fists of the father,
Is it the occult?
A macabre interest too young,
Is it the narcotics?
That fun white powder,
An amalgamation of all these facets?
Whatsoever the cause,
This foul creature was unleashed,
A stalker in the night,
Dreaming of Disneyland,
Mutilating and violating all the way,
Thirteen souls claimed in red and screams,
By a devil wearing a human costume,
This horned beast was finally caught,
Brought low by his own arrogance.
I once spent an evening with an angel,
And heavenly she was,
Aside from some goetic tattoos here and about,
But something transpired,
A force took hold of her,
The conversation turned increasingly esoteric,
Her words became sulphuric heat,
Forked tongues in each breath,
Onyx veils covered her eyes,
Stifling any humanity,
Her face became a mask,
Contorted and almost pliable,
An unknown presence lay behind it,
A baneful weight,
A malevolence,
The air felt heavy in her presence,
Like breathing in spiteful ash,
I asked her what she was,
She grinned,
And those were no longer human fangs.
There is tell of a fallen angel,
Feathers replaced with horns,
Some epitome of spite,
And of this we are taught to fear,
Lauded as some ultimate enemy,
But I say different,
The devil is an amateur,
Way out of his infernal depth,
Ultimate evil sits in coffee shops and sips lattes,
A creature as studious as it is destructive,
Whose ingenuity has moulded countless systems of abuse,
It chokes the land not in lies but toxic waste,
The devil should just retire,
Last I checked we wore serpent skins,
Extinction is just in a days work,
Even Lucifer ought fear the mailed fist of man,
Both in location and scale of evil,
Humanity is punching down.
That lyre,
Apollos hand-me-down,
An instrument of antiquity,
That sound,
Each tone more shrill than the last,
Thundercracks across string,
I hate it,
I hate those aural pangs,
They scrape across my cranium,
Nails upon chalk,
Leaving invisible scars,
There is nothing divine about this sound,
No virtue from its turtle shell frame,
It is a miserable dirge of angst,
Plucked free by the fingers of demons,
Inflicting naught but malady.
WorldofHarley 