The Knock of the Devil

Sweaterbelly, Sweaterbelly

Walked to a golden tomb

The prize of a child of good and bad

Lay powerful in her womb.

And angel’s lust, an urgent must

Seduced by hell’s beauty,

Consummated heaven and hell

In the house by an autumn tree.

The devil who knocked upon her door

Gestured toward the moon,

Bright eyed and pure the Angel laughed

And was led to the devils room.

Within the room there was a bed

Where he lay heaven’s bride down.

Her family above watched her sin

With tears and rejecting frowns.

He dined upon her body that night

Until nothing was there

But skin so thin the wind went right through

And feathers for her hair.

She bore a child, that was me

My name is Daniel Doom,

I was born with a crooked halo’s head

At the pull of the merciful moon.

They called my mother Sweaterbelly

Because she was mocked by all

A sweater covering her pregnant state

Despite her being tall.

My skin has scales like father had

My wings with splattered down

Born at twenty years old I was

With no one but mother around.

My right hand is golden with devils nails

But I’ll tell you what worried me most,

My left hand was cursed as my father’s paw

And summoned hell’s horrible ghosts.

One day I saw my mother rise

And with not a tear she shed

Looked at the place where I was conceived:

The Devil’s elegant bed.

Every day she would look up

Upon heaven’s gates

And now she that fell in love with the devil

Her redemption was too late.

So Sweaterbelly took off her shirt

And naked walked to the gold tomb

The place she had made when she conceived me

Where she called me Daniel Doom.

I watched between my hands as she

Fell into the hole

As nothing but dust and feather and bones

No place for her solemn soul.

 Don’t get me wrong, my reader dear

Beauty did not evade me,

I’ve pure white skin and auburn eyes

And hair the color of the sea.

My scales fell off one stormy night

When the wind and rain went through,

Heaven, blowing some angels down

Soaked, through and through.

I’ve grown into pure devil, yes,

My left hand fully grown.

I lift my fingers to my army

With whom deceptive wings are sewn.

The knock of the devil is not inviting

It’s slow, a perfect sound,

Knocking on doors of heaven’s lost

With no friend of theirs around.

I saw the wind take an angel down

And she ran into a house,

Skittish and lost she hid alone

As scared as a baby mouse.

I knocked upon her door that night

Just as my father had done,

Hoping to plant my seed within her

To have a beautiful son.

Some moments passed I heard her move

I waited impatiently,

She answered, shy and so loving, yes

As angels were meant to be..

I fell and cried and lied to her

And told her I wanted God,

All the while between my hands

Lusted after that heavenly bod.

“I want to go back!” I faked my cry

and she cried and held me close.

My son, my heir, Yes, I could see

Her body my heavenly host.

I tore her body quite to shreds

She wailed in ecstasy,

The night was still, there was no sound

It was only her and me.

She looked at me with love that night

And just iike Sweaterbelly,

Her stomach was round with my child heir

Who was born beneath dead trees.

But what was this? I asked in shock

As my child entered the world,

My god, I wept as I looked upon her

My child was only a girl.

Her halo was sharper than mine ever was

Her skin not white but gold,

I could tell by the look in her deformed eyes

She would only do what heaven told.

The way she wept was heartbreaking

She wasn’t beautiful.

Her heart was more angelic, you see

And so very, very, hopeful.

Her hair was white as if she’d aged

Within her mother’s womb

The moon came out in that black night

As my wife was making her tomb.

My father looked upon my frown

And at the child I made

He calculated evil and good

And this is what he said:

“Things are not as bad my son,

as they would currently seem.

She’s not as aged as she looks

The girl is only thirteen.”

And she enough as years went by

My daughter was thoroughly told

That her soul had been left to me

And by heaven she had been sold.

Her face did change into a sight

So relieved I was to see

A beautiful angel with devil’s eyes

In love with the Beast at the Tree.

It sat in hell with roots as deep

As the oceans bottom floor

He cast a spell on my daughter one night

And she walked through his cumbersome door.

Her body had never grown past

Of one that was more of thirteen

Her lavender eyes were beautiful, yes

As hell had ever seen.

Her hair was still white and held the light

Of a tired but hopeful heaven

Her mind was still of a child’s you see

And regressed to one who was just seven.

Her body had grown into a strange perfection

Slender and golden with bright blue wings

She was uninformed, my reader dear

That her heart was of good things.

Heaven yearned for their lost child

But she didn’t know it existed

The beast was fixated upon her

And to me it had insisted.

He dined on her body one gory night

And all of hell’s lights went black

For when the beast dines on an angel’s body

All decency he would lack.

No child would come of this night,

Only pleasure at his conquest

He told me to give my daughter a name

And I fulfilled his curious request.

Sweaterbelly had died all the same

I barely remembered my mother

But my wife, when she died I genuinely grieved

And I had never sought another.

He wanted a name because, he said

He wanted to rule all of hell

But when she heard this she turned to me, said,

“But father, I don’t feel very well.”

We put a crown upon her head

And trimmed her bright blue wings

And celebrated in terribly glee

The pleasure of the Great Thing.

The beast sat fat and pulsed in pleasure

As she slumped upon her throne

Unaware of the heaven above her head

She accepted hell as her home.

Oh reader if you only knew

Of a father’s pride to tell,

But over and over she said to me,

“Father, I don’t feel very well.”

I wrote in stones my fairy tale

To tell my triumph to you, my reader

But every day my daughter would sigh, say,

“But I don’t want to be your leader.”

Sweaterbelly’s name was given

Because we mocked her nature

Despite her origins of heaven, you see,

She had a curious human’s stature.

And so mundane we thought she was

And then found a funny sweater

And fooled her in her sorry state

That the clothing had made her look better.