Hell On Verse by Nate Munson

The dark shroud of midnight,
     covered the valley that evening,
and the demons were released,
           from within the ink,
of the poet’s pen.
As the sulfuric acid spewed from their unholy throats,
          a world of evil was created,
     by the poetry of a distraught man.
A world,
     where murder was the least of one’s worries,
and rape was a common household practice.
Little children were chased by monsters,
             in every stanza,
      that his trembling hands would frame;
and I was crucified on line 45,
                   and everything Good perished with me.

The poet’s light brown hair,
         was barely noticeable underneath,
      his Boston Red Sox ball cap,
                   and his blue eyes were hidden,
               behind the black frames,
of his scratched up glasses.
Beside his moleskin notebook,
           was a NIV Bible,
which he used to reference righteous things,
                 in order to write their opposites into being,
in this hellish world he was creating,
        with every verse he wrote.
The demons were gathered around his desk now,
             taunting him as he wrote.
Jeering they said, your work is awful,
              you’re a complete disgrace,
we wish you’d quit,
                   you’re making us sick.
And he believed every word they stabbed him with,
          because he couldn’t possibly assure himself that,
he had more worth than this.
                   The shadows still dance about him,
               their fangs glistening in the light of his lamp,
and he kept writing the awful things,
           that his evil imagination would insist.
A certain demon he knew well,
the servant of hell, Despair
           was now perched on his shoulder,
       and whispering in his good ear,
Why don’t you just die already?
    Is this pain not enough for you?
“My friend,”    I’m simply trying to help you.
God knows not your suffering,
        so why pleasure him with your anguish?
Destroy him in your writings;
        in this world of hate you’ve created.

The demons kept circling him throughout the night,
        hurling at him their hell-bound lies,
and above them all the angels watched,
          weeping for the blue eyed poet.
Yet,
      he kept writing,
             destroying,
             murdering,
                 stealing,
in this new hell he had created.
It was Hell On Verse,
         and it had captured him.

The night moved further towards the dawn,
             but the sun never rose,
for the young poet that morning,
         and the East he would never see again,
as his heart came to rest,
                       in the plains of the Western horizon.