Lucifer Unemployed

I.

It’s enough that the other
archangels are out of work--
how cheesy they are--Beelzebub
lying on the unemployment
insurance claim form, how
he was fired without due cause;
Mammon eyeing the destitute
teenager, thinking that it
wasn’t his idea to line up
on election day, 1992, hearing
the girl say she would vote
for Perot, if at all, if she
were old enough. Lucifer
has hit it hard, breaking
company rules, misconducting
left and right, all because
he is screaming to get canned
but is too scared to leave
on his own will. But when
God gives you the boot, it’s easy
to feel cheated, a little
bitter, a little dry. Lucifer
appreciates the patience
of his work counselor, Shirley.
"We’ll find something," she
says. "Or maybe we can
school you in something."
Lucifer looks at her. "You
know," he says, "I’ve always
wanted to go into film. Directing.
I’ve always admired Chaplin.
Are you familiar with his work?"

II.

At night Lucifer burns
his dinner and eats it. He
writes long, narrative poems
of his hate for the world.
He alienates his lover with
seedless pomegranates and pity.
Lucifer explains to her, "Looking
for work does a number
on your self-esteem." Still,
she chooses to love him,
and he wonders how she
still can, pending his divorce,
pending his unemployment--
"Make use of your time," she says.
"It’s a perfect opportunity
for you to write. Don’t let
those bastards get to you.
Defeat them while you’re
on their severance pay." He writes
more poems, love poems. The old
meters are no longer there, but
he keeps at it in a language
rough enough to please him.
He shows her one, and she
is happy. A small sign for her.
Even so, the despondency returns,
God’s hard laugh and echo, "Get
your sorry ass out of here," and
worse, signing the resignation
to save face. Or else he hears
Sartre, or some other old,
dead existentialist friend
whisper, "You were never
a pianist if you ever quit
playing the piano." Lucifer
wonders whose joke is crueler--
God’s or Sartre’s when all he
has is time, and everyone he knows
no longer has an appetite for
silent films, for a sentimentality
that opens a heart, a little
humor, a little gravity, a little
love.

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