John Milton Interviews Satan For Entertainment Tonight

[Transcript from an interview soon to be broadcast on Entertainment Tonight.]

Milton: Since Halloween falls on a Monday this year, and this is his birthday weekend, I am here talking with Satan, on Skype, from his holiday villa “Pandaemonium” deep in the depths of Hell. Satan, let me be the first fan in England to wish you a big Happy Birthday!

Satan: Gee-wiz, thanks, John. So kind of you to call. I am touched, really, I am. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you. And may I say you look marvelous for a 400-year-old? What is your secret? Who is your surgeon? You could pass for a teenager. It must be the poetry—Paradise Regained.

Milton: [Blushing.] Such a sweetheart.

Satan: By the way, I enjoyed your pamphlet on free speech. Areopagitica—great title. I can’t wait for the movie.

Milton: [Even redder now.] No wonder Eve fell for you. Satan, I know you are in Hell and everything, but you sound so mellow, so relaxed. Why is that?

Satan: I am not religious, you see. I love where I am in life. I always have. This is my home. Hell is all in the mind. So is Heaven. As long I have high speed internet access, a hibachi, a Ken doll to grill and somewhere to surf, I am in Heaven. Malibu Barbie never had it so good.

Milton: When you say you are not religious, what do you mean? Are you saying that you don’t believe in God?

Satan: No, not exactly. I believe in God. I just wish that he believed in me.

Milton: I heard about your break-up. I didn’t want to ask about it directly. Worse than Jen and Brad’s?

Satan: I wouldn’t say it was as Earth-shattering as that, not by Hollywood standards. But it was certainly all over the tabloids at the time. It was bad enough.

Milton: Are you bitter?

Satan: No, not bitter. Just a little sad. Look, don’t get me wrong. I think God is great. “Akbar” and all that. I wish I could do more to help him—justify his actions, so to speak. Nobody adores God more than I do—even after what he did to the Amalekites in that bar in Seattle. I understand lashing out. I have felt that way about the paparazzi myself. But genocide? Jeez Louise, God, get a grip.

Milton: Are you still friends?

Satan: In the biblical sense, sure. It can get complicated around the holidays. God and I still get together for brunch whenever I am in town.

Milton: I always suspected God was gay.

Satan: He’s not. Not exclusively. I believe God is bisexual. He loves almost everyone. Even the Amalekites, maybe. I am not so sure how he feels about the paparazzi though. He has a hard time with photographers. I wish they would leave him alone.

Milton: [Nodding sympathetically.]

Satan: [Leaning forward, confidentially.] Off the record, John, between you and me, he has this kid and some mysterious woman in Rome he is paying alimony to. Or blackmail. Possibly a transsexual. You know how those Italians are. I never saw the name on the envelope, but he used to cut her a check—10% of his residuals—every month. He is a nice man, a lovely man, but an unholy financial mess.

Milton: Off the record. Sure. [Clearing his throat.] So, when you say you are not religious, you don’t mean to suggest you are an atheist?

Satan: No. Far from it. There is no system of belief more suicidal to happiness than atheism. A pile of dust—what kind of future is that for an ambitious angel to look forward to?

Milton: Not much of one, I suppose.

Satan: Hell, no. Give me Malibu and my hibachi.

Milton: About religion then.

Satan: Oh, yeah. I mean, I hate organized religions. I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state. I don’t believe in unions—reunions—collectives of any kind—artistic, intellectual, political. Sex is a different matter. I am all for that—consenting individuals. But I would rather stick my head in a wood chipper than be caught in a cheering crowd. I am a small ‘d’ democrat. The ‘d’ stands for ‘devil’.

Milton: [Smiling.] Very funny. Speaking of crowds, what do you think of the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Satan: I honestly feel sorry for the kids. Lied to everywhere, by everyone. No place to poop. But I think their leaders are idiots—they should be pissing on their professors’ lawns instead of in Zuccotti Park—especially the English majors. Who spends $100,000 at a spa studying Foucault for 4 years? Insane.

Milton: It is rather.

Satan: You can buy houses all over America for that much and still have money left over to open a coffee shop, learn HVAC repair, and stage a guerilla theater production of Coriolanus in Washington D.C.—complete with puppets. [Sipping herbal tea.] It’s like I said about Heaven and Hell: you make your own Malibu. There are always dues to pay to some bare-knuckled thug or wild-eyed zany somewhere down the line, if you don’t.

Milton: Can you give us an example?

Satan: [Thinking.] I was going to mention Bush and Obama, but they are more like Laurel and Hardy, aren’t they? The two smiling sides of a counterfeit coin. Nobody takes Republicans and Democrats seriously anymore—not in the real world—not in the world I live in, anyway.

Milton: In Hell?

Satan: In California, John. Ken—wave to the man. I know he can’t see you, I know he is blind, I know he’s a poet, but be a doll, Ken, and wave to Milton anyway. [Ripping off Ken’s left arm and still trying to think of a good example of a thug or a zany.] Ken is waving to you, John.

Milton: Hi, Ken!

Satan: [Using Ken’s severed arm to scratch his back.] See, take the French Revolution. Take the intellectuals. Take the guillotine. They get rid of Schwarzenegger and what is the first thing the smart people do? They anoint Jerry Brown Governor: they install a moonbeam as god and immediately lose their minds. Jesus, you might as well hand over your house keys to the chief lunatic in the asylum. [Rolling his yellow eyes in disbelief.]

Milton: Speaking of Jesus, I have always wondered, do you know him—Jesus—I mean—personally?

Satan: I do. [Tossing Ken’s arm into a river of lava.] He will always have a special place in my heart. A nice boy. Red hair. Constantly climbing trees. A dead ringer for Opie Taylor—the young Ron Howard. Jesus was always being followed home by lost puppies—wherever he went. I think the divorce hit him hard and the puppies sensed that.

Milton: The divorce? Oh, the lady [?] in Rome.

Satan: Yeah. Her. Animals are like that. They know things. They remember things. The other kids are really going to crucify him in high school, of course, if he doesn’t lose those strays. I have half a mind to tell him the puppies can stay down here in Malibu with Ken and me.

Milton: That’s awfully generous.

Satan: It’s nothing. Jesus texts me all the time. God is hopeless with numbers, so I help Jesus with his math homework. He is learning fractions now. He thinks of me as his second father, I guess, Pandaemonium as his second home. God used to bring him down to Malibu from L.A., you know, for long weekends. We made quite a happy family, really. The three of us would play Monopoly together. [Wistfully, as if remembering happier days.] Jesus liked to be the thimble. Being the bank, I preferred the top hat.

Milton: And what was God?

Satan: God? Oh, God. What was God? Let me see if I can remember. Christ was the thimble. I was the hat. [Long pause.] I’ve got it: God was the dog. He was the dog. Of course, what else could God be?

Milton: The dog. Of course.

Together: Happy Halloween!

Snowsuit

[The person speaking here, of course, is Lucifer.]


As much as I deplore soliloquies,
Speeches, and comic monologues—they turn
My stomach—I must still deliver these

To raise dejected spirits. “Let’s return
To your big bedroom. Heaven, then. Some past
Prison you can imagine. If you yearn

To smash Authority, smash it. Break the glass.
Inhale the mustard gas. Give me the cries
Of children running helter-skelter as

I calmly napalm you. Surprise! Surprise!
Who did you think that you were playing with?
A girl? A weepy sissy? Come on, guys.

I am not Jesus. Christ, the only myth-
Ic man you’re likely to encounter in
This life is Love. And would you like a list

Of his offenses, His war crimes? Then
Stand by for a fight. There is no horror,
No atrocity, God would not commit to win.”

I say this to a green casualty of war
Pulled from a heap of clingy clothes—no vests—
All arms—a corpse I drag across the floor

More irreverently than one expects
A kid to treat the dead: with a smile, a skip,
A shaking rump, the exclamation, “Yes!”

It seems my snowsuit doesn’t mind a bit.
He joins the general festivities—
Snowball season! Canceled school! I unzip

His bowels. I slide through his extremities.
I search for mittens—and he giggles like
I’m tickling him. Almost until he pees.

Event Horizon

The long piece I mentioned in my last blog post seems to be taking a sort of shape. Instead of long columns of continuous terza rima, I seem to be settling into 30 line snapshots of the story as it develops. Maybe, later on, I will add some connective tissue to these bare bones, but I will have to see how things develop. In the meantime, my little skeleton will have to shamble along as best he can.

As things stand now, I have composed two poems. The first lays out something of the structure of the entire piece. I call it The Argument. It is modeled after Milton's summaries of what to expect in each book of Paradise Lost. It is narrated from an impersonal point of view.

The second poem, Pandemonium, continues the story from my own perspective, as an adult and as a boy, looking inward at a picture of my home from the perspective of a man and outward, at the family lawn, from the perspective of a child. Where I am looking out at the world as a child, I am seeing the landscape through a large cherry lozenge I once stuck to my window, to alert firemen (should the house catch fire) that a child might be in that room. Part of some civic safety campaign, distributed by the local Fire Department to elementary schools, I expect.

I am not sure what the title of the entire book will be. Something should occur to me before I am finished.

Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

Paradise Lost, Book 1, 252-255


The Argument


Fix the architecture in your mind.
A house divided by a common wall.
A duplex structure. Old. Solid. No sign

Of instability. The only fall
On our horizon is a flake of snow—
The vanguard of a Heavenly host still

Hovering high in the clouds—an angel slow-
Ly fluttering his wings as he descends
Upon the asphalt shingles down below,

Landing gently. There. Lucifer sends
A shiver through the house. No plaster cracks,
Perhaps, no timbers bend. Let’s not pretend.

But something registers. A thermostat
Ticks over. Misty windows smile—serene,
Secure. Smug. An icy talon taps

Against these giant cataracts—seeing
How impregnable storm glass really is.
“You must be joking, folks.” The tv screen

Replies, “I love Lucy.” Laughter splits
Both sides. The Devil leaps into a pot,
Skating across black ice, catching his

Nails on a geranium too stiff to rot,
Or run, do anything except berate
The universe with palsied petals. Not

A sympathetic sky. Dispassionate.
Slate. Midnight. But softer than the bright
Steel breeze leaving the immaculate

Lawn gouged with long shadows. And that light,
That speck of white, almost invisible.
The little demon to arrive tonight.



Pandemonium


The one photo of the place I possess
I stole from Google maps. A blurry shot.
Despite new paint and siding, this address

Sucks all I am into a tiny dot—
All light, all matter—as gravity warps
Stars into singularities. I ought

To find myself in there, behind closed doors,
Drinking a jar of pickle juice. Nope.
I could be out walking the dog, of course,

Peaches, pausing while she poops. I hope
That I’m not falling down the cellar stairs,
Killing Kyle, or cutting my own throat

In one of those ridiculous nightmares
I never have. I never dream. Really,
I never sleep. I’m too busy upstairs.

I will be busy for eternity,
Peeling the wax paper backing from
A red decal—a circle—carefully

Applying it to my window. How come?
To tempt the firemen. It screams, “A boy
Might still be up there—burning in his room!”

That’s me. Young Lucifer. When I deploy
That red transparency inside my head,
Flames engulf the world. “You must enjoy

Destroying things.” That’s what my father said,
Receiving a wrecked radio. I dis-
Agree. I can make fists. I make my bed.

I manufacture ice. And look at this
Crayon monstrosity: a pink igloo.
A home. I can build homes where none exist.

Pandemonium

I have started writing a new longer poem, tentatively entitled Pandemonium--Pandaemonium being the capital of Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Every man's home is his castle, the English proverb says. The castle, in this case, is based on the duplex carriage house I grew up in at 139 Bryant Street in North Tonawanda, New York. (For all you Google maps fanatics.)

Essentially, the story I plan to tell decribes the events of a single winter day and night in 1977, when I was 9: when my little world unaccountably fell apart, physically, spiritually and metaphorically. It centers around the evil question which arose from that calamity.

"How do I put it back together again?"


Pandemonium


Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

Paradise Lost, Book 1, 252-255



Fix the architecture in your mind.
A house divided by a common wall.
A duplex structure. Old. Solid. No sign

Of instability. The only fall
On our horizon is a flake of snow—
The vanguard of a Heavenly host still

Hovering high in the clouds—an angel slow-
Ly fluttering his wings as he descends
Upon the asphalt shingles down below,

Landing gently. There. Lucifer sends
A shiver through the house. No plaster cracks,
Perhaps, no timbers bend. Let’s not pretend.

But something registers. A thermostat
Ticks on. Two misty windows smile—serene,
Secure. Smug. An icy talon taps

Against these giant cataracts—seeing
How impregnable storm glass really is.
“You must be joking, folks.” The tv screen

Replies, “I love Lucy.” Laughter splits
All sides. The Devil leaps into a pot,
Tumbling across black ice, catching his

Nails on a geranium too stiff to rot,
Or run, do anything except berate
The sky with palsied little petals. Not

A sympathetic sky. Dispassionate.
Cold slate. Midnight. But softer than the bright
Steel breeze leaving the immaculate

Lawn gouged with ugly shadows. And that light,
That speck of white, almost invisible.
The first of billions to arrive tonight.