The Devil's Agent

At midnight, in the depths of restless sleep

My spirit detects his steady heartbeat

There, at the end of my dead-end street

His walk, a work of the painful labor of time

Occasionally, even stopping to slowly rise

To release a long and heated sigh


By day, out of site on oily stained streets

But on warm sweaty nights, like tonight

He lingers there, within the fog of my dreams

Beneath my mind's smoky street lamp

With his rusty shopping cart filled with my sins

Holding the faded bus pass that is my life


He is singular and oblivious

The madness of a soul gone cold


The Devil came to him one lonely night

And placed him on parole from his private Hell

In return, blinding him to reality


What he'd once thought was love

Was replaced with limitless greed

Moving along the edge of life's now dim streets

He's become immune to love and lives for fear

Craving only the earthly flesh of women

And the simple creations of mere men


To him, the world is all ugly

Its' lost beauty ever his burden

His domain, now fully within Hell's illusion


But, the lofty thunder of his mind still rolls

With high clapping and mindless roars

Sometimes beneath the overpass night

Near a flaming trash barrel stove of drink

Or when watching from his earthly window

While scratching for his daily bread


But tonight he's prowling my mind

As he moves down my life's dirty street

Casting his shadow across my dreams

Twisting and turning tortured thoughts

He picks the pockets of my very soul

The Devil's agent upon my street


~G. Jones 2016