You don’t believe in God
but you know demons,
up close and personally.
The ever present haunting,
sometimes out of sight
but never far,
is a billowing storm cloud,
black and ominous,
waiting to pour down upon you
waiting to wash out your roads
waiting to carry you away
too rife with hopelessness
to thrash against it.
A demon rides your shoulder,
its claws clinging to your skin,
its fury held at bay by
an umbrella of medicaments,
a pharmaceutical shelter
from the storm,
inadequate against a
demon’s tempest.
Shawn L. Bird 
A very interesting piece. Are you Christian by any chance?
This demon is definitely metaphorical, not literal.
Ah, got you!
🙂
Brilliant opening lines there, had me hooked.
Thanks, Becky.
beautiful….
“A demon rides your shoulder,
its claws clinging to your skin,
its fury held at bay by
an umbrella of medicaments,
a pharmaceutical shelter
from the storm,
inadequate against a
demon’s tempest.”
my best lines
Glad it spoke to you.
Oh! Spot on and brilliant.
Thanks, Drew.
I’m with Drew. That was brilliant and extremely thought-provoking. Hope that’s someone else’s demon!
Thanks, Melody.
Well done. Do you publish your work (in literary magazines, etc.)?
Most literary magazines only accept pieces that haven’t been published, including on a blog. I’ve been published in a few anthologies. You can see my published books here: https://shawnbird.com/purchase-books/
This is gorgeous! In the “gave me serious shivers” way
Excellent! I like to hear that!
This is a very thought provoking and powerful piece. Demons – we all have one or more.
Thanks Kimberly.
Reblogged this on Inside the Stormy Prison and commented:
I thought this was in keeping with my blog. I like this poet.
Well demons, I know them. They have nothing to do with Christianity. It’s your own mind telling you off. It’s hard, but antipsychotics destroy them. They leave your body a wreck. This poem made me think. The real problem is people think demons are real. They are memes. Thought processes without material form. If all the angels and aliens that inhabited my mind were real the world would have been destroyed years ago. Thoughts, however perverse and malignant, are real in a sense. And people who have them, well, one day they will realize they are nothing more than the smoke from a smoldering twig.
Indeed
Yes, I feel its meaning. Trying to keep mine at bay and let the sunshine peek in through the clouds xx
Ooh, now a tune is stuck in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-2LInTlyE8
Heheh, I’m going to have to steal that thought and put it on my blog 😀