And in the Bargain, Too

So that’s the deal you struck with cherubs and devils. Don’t let one in unless you’re up for crowds. So you papered the walls with glossies of saints, and, near the threshold, set a font, and, kneeling, thumbed the rosary, devoting all your secrets not to love, but what would chill us most.

Six demons visited your room: Nero with his fiery eyes, sterling Judas, Cain the troglodyte, foaming Hitler, even polar Lucifer, and then that final Nameless One—the emerald angel.

A shivering priest performed the rite. Epilepsy shook your shoulders. Your avian spirit jerked in its burlap bag. Then the Nameless One threw the door wide open onto the lurid streets of Wurzburg, blurred with smoke from heretics burned at the stake.

Red Ogre Review Books (L.A.) and Liquid Raven Media recently released Ken Anderson’s The Goose Liver Anthology (Mother Goose meets Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology). His first poetry book was The Intense Lover. Coffin Bell Journal nominated his poem “Blood Quartet” for the 2024 Best of the Net anthology. He was a finalist in the 2021 Saints and Sinners poetry contest. His novel Sea Change: An Example of the Pleasure Principle was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award and an Independent Publisher Editor’s Choice.