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Poetry

El Diablo

June 17, 2007
iranian.com

Es ya libre, ya libre este suelo, ya ceso su servil condicion.
-Bolivian National Anthem

Hollow-hearted El Diablo
Was formed from smokeless fire,
His loveless, motherless, brotherless bones,
Made him a cold, decietful liar.
In Dos Rios, his City, unbearably warm,
where he kept his adulterous, hedonist home,
was well-lit and covered
in colorful lights, which illuminated
the dark, and cloudy night.

El Diablo calls me "hija,"
Inebriated with bloodshot eyes
Gambling with life the way he gambles
with dice;
sipping eternal "eaux-de vie."
He offers me ambrosia,
and chuckles at me, Melpomene!
I softly decline,
knowing I am a prisoner of Time,
of Chance and Circumstance
and that this godly food,
would be bad news,
coming from El Diablo.

El Diablo, fervently persued his Eve
Consumed by his Avarice, Envy, and Greed
He proudly spilled his villanous seed,
and gave her three more mouths to feed.

The first, spear-thrower,
Was a quarter century old,
his aura was calming,
his presence was bold.
It took a quarter-century
for him to knock on my door
It took him a minute to floor
and have me seeking his soul.

I swear he could have been an angel,
were he not the son of El Diablo.

Soon, he discovered,
This veteran lover,
He was my muse of tragedy
That he could inspire me
To Live
Recklessly beyond my means--

So I condemned myself,
and he did only what was in his genes--
Lust, Pride

Envy, Greed....

He kept the truth about his father undercovers
But I found it there,
With a long black hair
Which clung to his pillowcase;
And as I dozed mumbling about the drapes,

My mind in the distance
Listened to the muffled sounds
of the man in the median
Fluent in Ebonics
who dreams aloud, of
a drop-top Capris
equiped with hydrolics.
Damned like his family name
To be one of many
"Unfortunate,"
sons of El Diablo.

The unriped son,
Half an ounce plus three,
Was the baby, till his father
took his 'Honora.'
The quiet one, believed nobody knew
about the faceless women
with which he drew maps of anatomy--
And that his ignorance superceded him,
Made me smile,
For it meant that it would be a while
before this purity
would become obscured,
and he would learn the awful curse,
of his dearest, El Diablo.

While the fearful strength of their mother,
Who smiled stiffly through her bright,
Tiger Eyes,
At the innocent, gluttonous,
Would be bastard child,
Who was lavished with gifts twice his size,
That made him into a Zombie--
who stole her life,
and her El Diablo.

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