Pact With the Devil

pact with the devil:
a nondenominational psychic
in the field of ontic studies


from whom all blessings & curses flow
says some passage in Deuteronomy
& he thinks: so it is easy to assert
God did it & skirt the charge
no blame no claim no
shame no brag
either, Jo
your talents
looks & smarts
they all were gifts
it all be the will of god,
my love, & there is no act you
or anyone or anything dare claim
no need for prisons no need for laws
then again we are cursed with hypocrisy
oppressors rapists murderers warmongers &
disease earthquakes hurricanes floods fires drought
all out of the inscrutable wisdom of a god
that puts us in such a philosophically absurd
tautology of illogic round & round

free will: if you are not a child
if you are not physically handicapped
if you are not trumped by some natural
or social disaster victimized by being
born in the wrong place time class gender race
religion political affiliation clan tribe or
mental capacity any number of tangled circumstances
that make a joke of the idea of free
will: genetics environment disposition habit
language education the mystery of psychology
if one is even granted the ability to exert
a free will in some particular circumstance
how often does that circumstance present itself
& how often does one simply
follow the impulse of the moment
the habit of the least resistant path
thinking that: yes i am following
the least resistant path but now i am not
now i am following a resistant path
& i am not going to speak Finnish but Latvian
be a nondenominational psychic dog
trainer with excellent taste
in the field of ontic
studies & save
ten percent
of my wages
faithfully every
week for six hundred
& nineteen weeks & three
days & then i will become a bee
or an exotic dancer with a cute lisp

& our choices are terribly limited not
by some projected bad ass daddy-o god
but by all the varied elements of our physical
social emotional & the o so inexplicably
odd turns of events or fate or
the fixed psychological stasis & tremors
which weave in & out of our interior
& exterior relationships
with all the other elements
that make up the entirety of the world

call that totality of experience
& non experience God if you like but
it certainty has no control over what
is “meant to be” or what is “written”
will is to our behavior as dreams are
to prophecy: yes a dream can be prophetic
or it can be the remains of the day
or it can be a system test or random firings
or a gap that takes us to another dimension
& time but mostly dreams are simply forgotten
go unused & untold & they wash
like most events of the day
into a mash of dead things insignificant
& mundane

but what i want to say is: blessings to you
blessings & good things & laughter
lots & lots of laughter & if you
die & find yourself in front
of a rather pissed off
god: well, if you
mention my
name be
sure to
say:

“that
fuckin’
Williams!
i swear to god
he is such a loser—
good looking, true, but—
God, you shoulda known better


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry