there will one day be a machine
that can take you inside my mind
       and on that day
         you will see god & the devil both sitting for tea
behaving as gentlemen as they hand you cakes, cream & sugar
they chat late into the night, laughing with you as logs are rolled onto the hearth to burst with roaring light
filling your head with tales of wonder & woe
...casting shadows of horns & halos

their voices raise like a chorus equally at pathways taken
...both good & evil, for the triumph of man
                                           is free will

they weep at times, clasping each other close as if for warmth
...from some unseen cold, some shadow that cast upon their mood
never mentioning it by name, the times they were one & same
where ends justified the means to the detriment of all
...there stands one more soldier who will not fight or fall