The Better Angels Sing

“Let your better angels sing!”

They do sing…

gibberish,
and anger, raging,
as the scholars’ ink
dries upon the page,

but once…

a beautiful and fancy tale,
birthed in simpler days,
gave us some hope
in the shapes
of gilded and gossamer angels,
who would say,

“I will sing unto God and
His Glory is carried
by the Gilded Glow of my
Golden Grace.”

I’m unsure what to say, but

a little sand
to absorb the things,
that from the mouths of angels
are dripping,
because the weight

of truth

left them brain-dead,
soulless, and entirely
unthinking,

should clean this mess up nicely.

Verse and chapter,
witless or wisely,
the Bible brings
tales of doom and redemption,
but it glosses over the ease
in which the holy
can be brought to their knees
by the simple application
of truth over fiction.

The better angels can’t answer
because they have fallen
and the fallen are devils
that howl at only
the things that
please them.

Is that different
than the mortal man
who will howl for the
food that best feeds him?

Better angels,
and better devils,
feast on the scriptures
and from the minds of women
and men, come the demons
that demand to be written,

nay,
born…

by the pencil.

On the page,
writ from memory,
blotted ink,
and forgotten miseries,
lay the abstract angels
that represent
less realistic wishing,
but in the ink…

the blackest ink…

you can see the pit
and see us reflected
in it.

You may be entranced,
but don’t miss
the devils howling
just before the feast

of the better angels,
still falling.


©️ CG Tenpenny, 2020.

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