I Can Take Satan
by Bill Yarrow
kick boxing in trade school and learned
hermeneutics on the job so I was pretty sure
given the improvements in steroids over the years
I could take Satan in a fight. It was all I was convinced
in designing the encounter. I guess I could have
studied Clausewitz but I figured films particularly films
of the 40s and 80s would suffice and I was right.
I was totally prepared. I knew everything about backstabbing
and the double cross. So one evening I sent the challenge
and he appeared. This was Satan? A figure of immaculate
fun, a know-nothing skin-and-bones wimp weasel of a runt!
He came in hooded and robed but I was just musing
for his bruising. I felt ready for anything he could throw at me
and as I contemplated his paltriness I grew confident
in my ability to crush his nuts. Well he ran at me. Undaunted
I stood my ground. But as he ran at me his hood flew back
and revealed his head—it wasn't a head, it was a screen
upon which flashed a succession of images, each lasting
only a millisecond but long enough to register on my retina,
images of beauty, horror, excitement; artworks, statuary,
portraits; the most beautiful photographs I had ever seen,
the most interesting inventions, the greatest designs; all desire.
And I stood there entranced, astounded and amazed.
And while I stood there enthralled he struck me through.
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Author's Note
This poem appeared in the inaugural issue of OF ZOOS.
It also appears in POINTED SENTENCES (BlazeVOX 2012).
Other stories by Bill Yarrow
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This is pretty damned scary. I thought it was funny until Satin revealed the screen... I actually misread that as scream at first which is also terrifying. That contrast makes the ork very powerful. In the end, it’s writer 1and Satan zilch.
I remember this piece. Dark and wonderful. Well-written, Bill.
"I guess I could have // studied Clausewitz but I figured films particularly films / of the 40s and 80s would suffice and I was right. / I was totally prepared."
Good poem.*
Yes, this one stays with you, Bill. And the stream of images of desire, his deadliest weapon, an invention of the finest poetic imagination.
I like the conflict in the story, its showdown, I like the poem in it. *
Very good, Bill.
I have met Satan and he is my imagination.
Great poem.*
"I guess I could have//studied Clausewitz"
This one's fun, Bill. Like it a lot.*
"as I contemplated his paltriness I grew confident
in my ability to crush his nuts"...great set-up for what comes next. Love the turn this takes.
Great ending. Liked it a great deal.
"...jujitsu...fencing...kick boxing...hermeneutics"
"and the double cross."
Geez Loueeze I love this. Not just the knotty truth and howling funny of it but the whole prosy/poetic tumble of it to the full stop. Fav.