The Devil WritingBy John Nyman
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The Devil is not exactly
an author He doesn’t write a word unless you’re speaking And he doesn’t mind repeating But he also doesn’t hesitate to falsify He knows that talk is cheap, though speech is free He’s fluent, but obtusely Perhaps his evil’s mostly just banality The Devil writes poetry at the poetry reading His ethics is doing it my way The Devil In PersonBy John Nyman
The Devil’s clothed in nothing-
coloured skin The Devil’s naked—he isn’t faking it He’s just a character he’s in— A sinister person, with a person’s rights The Devil’s not a monster all the time Although he doesn’t empathize, he finds That I’m completely justified Praise GodBy John Nyman
What I work to stay clear of & almost do is irony
—Phil Hall, Guthrie Clothing My God is not the Devil,
and that’s enough for me. I praise God without irony and sing my praises honestly. I praise the flavour of flavoured things and do not believe in consistency— What else would I have learned from Kanye? I praise that I may write this wrongly, That I may make a distinction at all. I praise that I’m banal, but evil? Hardly. I praise the right to live life falsely. I believe that sunscreen will protect me, That there’s still a world in the cave. I praise that we’ll all die eventually, Praise God for resembling His enemy and letting me disbelieve. SplitsBy John Nyman
I leave it to the ferns to decide
if the first duty of a life is to die or to make die, since they split their stems. Although we toke from the same pot, we don’t both take the same breaths. My family taught me that. A photo: our simian faces bundled abominable— three pea pods in the same pea plant. It reminds me death is a sickness shed, forever the outer element. Its game is zero-sum. Thank God (for now) we’ve won. Holy of HoliesBy John Nyman
The family praying softly at the table
knows best they’re eating dinner at McDonald’s. The rest of us have placed our bets on seeing our holy city etched in red and gold and round as rainbows. Everyone puffs up and huffs from a paper sack. I’ve heard some cultures hold that bread contains the Spirit’s breath, while meat’s smell speaks of Earth’s first secret: fire, stolen, then clothed as if it were a master. I’ve also heard this place is famous elsewhere, at least with reference to its many copies’ carbon-copied meals; the refugees from Syria, for example, after spitting out their sponsors’ multi-culti dish just wished that they’d been taken to McDonald’s (which wouldn’t have been nearly as expensive). We’re all alike, you know; we measure life in small percentages and hope the fullness of instants brings us hope for something else. It just turns out we’ve thrown away the noun, like 3D-printed people counting up our holy holies. But I can’t say I’m worried: overstocked with fraudulent rewards cards from a cousin who doesn’t talk about his job, I’m glad to drink my seven coffees gratis and receive the eighth one free (my holy holy), glad to think that this is really Heaven, really, and sit amidst the hundredth billion served. John Nyman's debut poetry collection, Players (Palimpsest Press), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award in 2017. These poems are from his new chapbook, The Devil, forthcoming from knife | fork | book in March 2020. Find John online at johnnymanwriting.wordpress.com and instagram.com/selected.works.
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