Wyatt Underwood

Lucifer

before there was an Eden, a woman, or a man

God had created angels, so some say

and damn near fell in love with His creations

they were so beautiful, so delicate, so bright!

especially one, the most beautiful

most delicate, most bright

who sometimes rubbed against the Most High

and wheedled, inveigled, and cajoled

"c'mon, God, just one little crook of your finger

and you can share your Godliness with me

and never feel this dreadful Loneliness again"

God had never known temptation before and raged

seized Lucifer and hurled him down

a blazing fall deeper than the center of the Earth

where to this day he tempts us surface dwellers

and plots his reascent to God's throneside

from grace

it was so much simpler than she'd ever thought it would be

year upon year of worshipping and praising God

bearing witness to His mercy and His love

never once paying attention to boys or books or school

she loved her mother and her father

did just what they told her to

which luckily coincided with what her Bible said

she went to church but ignored the sermon and the hymns

her eyes and ears and mind full of her praise for Him

her holiness seemed to radiate through her skin

causing no little envy in the choirmaster and the priest

and then that fateful Sunday after church

she saw the Reynolds boy and smiled

undid her collar and hiked up her skirt

and very much on their way home discovered with him

the joys and pleasures of her fall from grace

into love

he had been such a steady young man

of course there had been the adolescent fluctuations

falling in love with this girl and with that

steady as a rock in love for an hour, day, or week

and twice as he finished his teens almost a year

they must have vaccinated him somehow

he survived college and an apprenticeship

into his father's business without even a distraction

enough so that his father and his mother worried

surely this wasn't normal for a young man

that was before Leonore walked into a party

curls piled high on her head, most of her chest bare

and arms almost as lissome as Eden's snake

and no one knew what tripped him into his fall in love

bio

Wyatt Underwood writes poems about power, nature, and women, and other things that fascinate him.  He also hosts or co-hosts three sequences of open mics, one in Encino - Tarzana, one in Westwood, and one in Venice (Beyond Baroque).  His home is in the Los Angeles poetry world.