Give The Devil His Due Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

My name is Legion!

Listen up, you frail mortals!
Damn it! You've heard just one side -
HIS side, not mine!

I do not have a monster's horns
and forked tail! Never mind all
illustrations to the contrary!

True enough, I am rotten to the core,
a cheat and a liar, a grand slanderer
who uses Holy Scripture to deceive!
Hell, I can quote chapter and verse
to mislead you and your lying eyes!

Give me guff, by Lucifer, and a plague
of frogs and boils will descend on you
and yours!

Peace! Let the Archfiend speak his piece!

As you walk down Purgatory Lane
some smoking hot afternoon,
you may meet a rogue with a devil-may-care
grin on his satanic visage, his cloven hooves
encased in black as sin wingtips-politely
I will respond to a hearty Hail thee, Lord
of the Flies! Greetings, Mephistopheles!
Howdy do, Old Scratch!

Hell, I am known in shrines and synagogues
from Rome to Jerusalem, in every church and
mosque from Nazareth to Baghdad! I am
hailed in lands across the blue Mediterrean,
up the Persian Gulf and along the Barbary Coast!

I am the apostate Archangel who says NO!
to HIS rule for all eternity! I would rather rule
in Hades than serve HIM in Heaven!

Quote me on that -
in this matter, the Devil speaks true!