Dr. Faustus' Sonnet

Malachi Ray Adkins

I run alone down toward The One I praise
as wives’ tales say that hell is full of burn,
and only I receive communiques,
and shove me down that hole that is to learn.

And here I see no Lord of Heaven free.
The Lord of ground will rest forever here,
Sitting amid the world, full seventy
centuries alone in this flaming, clear

abode. In some ways, he does love friendship.
I can have all the wives I need or want.
The angels are not welcome where I trip.
I turn and burn and sign and bleed with blunt,

Old quills whose ink spills from my boiling veins,
and now I go down to my Lord in vain.