Bedside Beelzebub
'Bedside Beelzebub' by Ralph Hill
*Niets is kostbaarder dan de tijd, Want hij is de prijs van de eeuwigheid.
*Netherlands proverb: Nothing is more precious than time, For it is the price of eternity.
Rapt in scarlet silence soft
The digit-demon lurks.
I hear no honest tick from his
Deep necromantic works.
Electron-imps cavort about
Each sizzling silicon-chip;
With quick quark-questing power, they hold
Old Time in grimfast grip
From eights carved out of two stark rhombs,
As never scholar penned,
His glowing inch-high cypher-shapes
Derive, deform, subtend –
Subtract a half-line, two, or three,
To fashion ugly figures,
Eschewing comely curvatures
For electronic rigours.
In light, they glow the brighter, but
In darkness, self-subside.
This counterfeit coyness masks
His overweening volt-puffed pride.
In the night, if wakeful, I,
To count the slow hours down,
My now long-pensioned eyeballs
Must distort with intense frown,
Compressing them to focus,
For I wish to make no stir
With rustling search for spectacles.
I must not waken her.
One and seven are easy,
Three and four, ungainly plain.
I struggle with the rest, decide,
And drift to sleep again.
The demon, never sleeping,
Works his spell without respite.
Careless of my gaze, his digits
Dart by day and night.
His destiny is written:
Obsolete, and scrapped, in fine;
But I shall have the better part;
Eternity is mine.
