The Hobo Chronicles: Neville vs. The Devil
Neville fought the Devil once and no one ever knew,
He sent the bastard back to Hell all beaten black and blue!
Corruption reeked in all of him, his clothes left worn and stained,
And only ale would purify the demons in his veins!
Iron Neville was his name when days gone by were still,
A celebrated man of wealth until his love grew ill!
Though death was cheating, life was cruel and all it seemed in vain,
Now Neville’s place amongst the living, crying in the rain!
When money burned and wheels turned, his friends came thick and fast,
When need succeeded privilege, he put himself dead last!
But when you throw it all away, renounce your ways in greed,
No longer caring, lesser sparing so-called friends recede!
So, lost in life but found in truth, our Neville burned his feet,
On endless rows of hopeless roads decayed in summer heat!
Where not one man had shown compassion, saved him from this fate,
He chose to never help himself again…
For Death he would patiently sit and wait!
And here was where he found his new identity, and written in the holes of new-found clothes.
Where delusion is handed down from the last and its label is worn only in your way of life!
Where futility is the one solution to dodging all life’s little doubts,
And ‘Nothing!’ is the answer to all prayers in God’s own sacred house!
Faced with little, feeling less. Bewaring the Burning Serpent’s Kiss.
The prospect of “rock bottom” fades when falling through the Black Abyss!
Here life thrives only for the rats, in the rotten carcass of a dead old girl,
Seemingly redundant of life, her belly home to a forgotten Underworld!
Maggot-ridden spirits hidden, ghosts of tragic self-abuse,
A race in neither Life, nor Death, for this world they have not one single use!
Neville neither stayed nor strayed, belonging to himself no more,
And trapped between reality and psychotic fantasy’s ever open door!
And from this door the Devil spewed his Legion of unwanted filth,
For all the souls on God’s grey Earth to fear and curse… in close-guarded guilt!
But Neville was in fact God’s own but not where life was blurred and grey,
In undergrowth of moss and soil and other things we shall not say!
For though his flesh was growing fungal and in his blood were thirsting itches,
Neville’s soul was pure and blessed…
One place where no wounds needed stitches!
A strange creature was the Devil, a man with wings that couldn’t fly,
Unless on gusts of human cries where all God’s faith had surely died!
But Neville’s gift of seeing men for what they truly ever were,
Was thrown to doubt and disarray when seeing that the Devil really cared!
For just as Moses smells the Roses and Christ is on his mountain bike,
Old Scratch was all the same as we and living his own simple way!
And just like Neville, falling far and never meeting cold hard gravity,
The Devil fell and only rose to suffer alongside Humanity!
Living with the unknown roaming, looking for a candlelight,
In darkness where there is no hope, where fight replaces graceful flight!
The Devil soulless, envious of mankind’s granted gift of freedom,
Bitter, twisted, seeking solace making wrong of Righteousness…
And Goodness growing seldom!
Who would not understand the bitter irony of a King fallen from Grace,
If not a man who had lived as such, but had not the ability to rise above?
Where evil grew of love betrayed when Father was an artful moper,
If only then in early days they’d sooner thought of hiring Oprah!
Such was this, the humour of the Devil as in all God’s merry men,
His Dark Side, side by side with Light might bond but who knew when?
But now the Devil sick and tired of making Neville understand,
He tried to strike a deal to make him join the damned by his right hand!
All his life belonged to wealth and promised him again and more,
The Devil for another soul, but Neville claimed he knew the score!
His gift of freedom, promise kept, was always there to have and hold,
There was no wealth or gain in life worth that he would have sold!
So angered at this monkey’s choice to deny the Devil loyalty,
The shit it hit the fan and painted Neville brown indefinitely!
The Lord of Flies, so quick to rise, stuck on him like shit to a blanket,
No time to hope for a bar of soap, Neville saw a door and sprang for it!
The world around him reeled and keeled. The smell was beyond rancid,
But if God’s white telephone had rang, the call had gone unanswered!
Sick to death more of life than the smell of diseased and hopeless damnation,
Neville set himself on fire with a struck match and ran to the nearest Fire Station!
Arrested halfway there for vagrancy and giving him the hose,
The Police followed obligations with laundry pegs on their nose!
And sending Iron Neville back to skirt upon the fray of desperation,
They pitied him with awkward looks, his troubles beyond imagination!
Here is where God’s Neville returned to lock horns with the Devil,
All-deciding of the fate of the human race, too busy paying interest rates!
Might it have been God’s plan that a White Storm was brewing, who knew?
Neville had drank some on an old park bench while sadly enjoying the view!
For this may have been his final drink, his end of days, and what a lonely Last Supper,
Where he alone agreed with himself, that to die would mean to no longer suffer!
But where the Devil had beaten him that day at High Noon,
He’d be damned if he wouldn’t get even!
For although he, in life, had thrown life to the wind,
He would never bow down to the Heathen!
By midnight he’d be sober and less likely fall over,
And make a stand on Neville’s own two feet!
But at one point he staggered and was blatantly bladdered,
And his words now a dry, strangled bleat!
The strange brew he’d drank as his cup poureth over,
Imbued him with confident strength!
And at seven-point-five percent, it was miracle enough,
That Neville could get off the bench!
Like a dream he was drawn ‘cross the park’s fertile lawn,
And into the Church by the way!
As before he should go into battle alone,
He just wanted to have his last say!
‘I love this world now more than ever before and my dear dead wife,’
were his last words!
‘But the grass will be greener, and church carpets cleaner,
In Heaven where there’s no standing in random dog-turds!’
But blackness came over, the Devil rushed over,
And threw Neville a cheap shot to the face!
But the grisly old bastard took square on the chin,
And after Old Scratch he did chase!
The candles burned Hellishly, like the breath of the Dragons,
And Frogs they did rain from the ceiling!
More insulted than frightened, Neville’s wit sooner brightened,
And asked him to turn up the heating!
As candlestick and crucifix clashed in war,
Neville’s fighting skills seemed pretty basic!
But suddenly launching himself in the air,
He pulled off a flying kick right out of “The Matrix!”
The Devil gone postal, his torch of death struck,
And mortally wounded poor Neville!
Only grim determination had left him alive,
And dealt one final blow to the Devil!
The Devil v. Neville had come to an end,
The Serpent, defeated, sent flying!
And floating on air, charged by his own despair,
He’d never felt quite more like dying!
The battle was over and Lightness prevailed,
Where all that was dark now caught flame!
And out of the fire, a chorus of choir,
The Angels of Heaven had came!
Beckoned in mourning, his wife’s voice was calling,
Our hero had now found his way!
And where should have been night, was a blinding white light,
And the legend that was Neville had gone!
But not what you think, God didn’t work in such ways,
There was no such divine countenance!
Simply hearing a call, Neville walked out the door,
And was hit by a stolen Ambulance!
So now broke, broken, braced up and constantly tanked up,
The saviour of our human race!
He’s Neville the Nameless, so pissed-up and aimless,
He’s cross-eyed and blue in the face!
Keep the Faith!
