Death To Good Men

[In a bucolic, mostly empty Inn, Satan and Tony sit, holding mugs of ale, across a wooden rectangular table from one another on rickety rusted metal chairs. Through the windows the dim light from the evening sky yields to the ceiling lamps in the room, which aide in casting long shadows on the vacant, wooden floor; This gives the visual and emotional impression to the few patrons lingering around of two magnanimous, statuesque men in passionate dialectic about weighty matters.]

[Satan (swigging, but not gulping]: TONY! MY MAN!

[Tony]: Yo Satan, or as I like to affectionately identify you – Stan! What up dude? (Tony chugs down half the ale in his glass, engendering the early stages of inebriation)

[Satan (smirking at Tony’s impending drunkenness)]: You know what I told Jesus that day on the mountain son?

[Tony (slurring)]: whew? I mean WHO?

[Satan (grimacing and staring blankly at the window)]: JESUS! ARGGH…I mean Jesus. That fraud. I told that bamma “Death to all good men.” To hell with them all

(Satan slams his glass down)

[Tony (raising his glass to his mouth whilst tilting his head back to consume to final contents of his glass)]: *burp!* Whaaaaa? (slurring) What you tell him Stan? What you tell him?  

///// To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will/////

--------------------------/Death to Good Men; Satan’s Words To Jesus on the Peak of The Mountain

Virtue is poison there are none happy only coping

men laden with burdens their souls cannot carry

silence

a bitten tongue beneath quivering lips their only reprieve

theirs is a shovel, their intentions met with futility

dirt their frustration ever mounting

a stone memorial of failure, their bodies rage that cannot be buried

existence is a spiteful scream

(like a shooting comet burning the cosmos lusting to crash)

 at a life devoid of hope and conquest. (Social inequity)

when religion consists of bloodletting, and murdering sheep

and bulls, doves and goats, I see a subliminal psychology that begs

revenge, revolting violence

for the current order to be overruled or expelled by force

(of molten ash and lava…a recalcitrant volcano forever)

this land is not exuberant and never shall it be

 the present ethos this strident striving for righteousness and salvation

the cruelest delusion

a man murders his wife, and marries his adulteress over her warm

body stepping, a poor honest man dies diseased while his master: a rotund

repulsive scoundrel of a man sleeps with wine dripping down his chin

prostitutes on his lap

wild beasts ravage roving pilgrims

paying homage to Passover fairness passes them over

the heritage left behind to progeny: hatred of and for humanity

(earthquakes of disconsolation)

and the Mountain oversees all we stand at the base of clouds and stars

even the sky is full of degradation lightning and thunder

Look down with pity at the reprobate and recant, stare

this world cannot be saved from its hypocrisy

anymore than it can be spared its natural disasters

bow down under the crushing weight of the insanity

of trying to rescue lost causes men that hate living

 let your compassion die in a flood

of forty days and nights of pleasure and indifference

(Kingdoms of consciousness that I will give you)  

worship me, the pragmatism that pleads: Give up and walk away

let Israel rot

----Luke 4:1-13

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,

and him only shall you serve.’”

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

to guard you,’

and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.