DOOMed 4 All Time
I'm going to play DOOM for real one day.
I'll start out with a pistol and 3 clips
that I stole from the cop who shot me
shot me and sent me here to the Shores of Hell,
where mountain fog is stained red with blood
from both demon beasts and devil men that I shot
as they came for me.
They all come for me.
I am both player and pawn in the Game
a knight storming rook after rook in Hades Fort.
There are no points, only kill counts
that I tally in my head at the end of each level,
one right after the others as I kill
one demon after another with bigger and bigger
guns of all kinds. I pick up more
and more ammo as I go. And they shoot me too
with ammo of all kinds and rockets.
Bite me Claw me Crush me Telefrag me.
I can still see through my eyes after they kill me.
My vision always turns to the one who did,
cracking the bones in my neck if need be
to keep the killer in view.
This way I know who it was and I make sure
to kill him the next time around.
There will always be a next time.
I restart the level all over again
with my pistol and 3 clips that I stole.
I'll pick up more guns along the way.
There are always more
guns here and there every-
where am I going to be
after the Inferno where floors are skin
where walls smile and scream?
Thy flesh consumes me I imagine,
if I should get too close.
I put a bullet in each face's brain.
They stare and giggle at lead.
Do they have brains?
And I move on I go to Hell on Earth, where buildings topple
and smoke like volcanoes-- infernos all over again
for me. But it kills all the demons inside
and saves me the trouble of doing it myself.
It kills men too if they are still human.
Most are not, the really human ones are
in silver spaceships in void, moldy stars in the distance.
I am alone on earth
with only the dead and the dying to talk to.
They never talk back. The demons only say
"OW!" and talk backwards spit words at me.
I return to the condominiums of Hell
(after a brief stint killing Nazis in a prison castle dungeon)
return to Hell where the face of the
bleeding sky is stripped of all its flesh
so that only colossal dripping
skulls look down at me from the red
over the bone-white mountains. I will
look like a skeleton myself after a while.
Starving, all I have to eat is flesh and blood,
man and demon. I'll get used to it.
I wish Dante had been right
and I could go to Limbo. But he was wrong
and I will go to Hell one day, where I will play DOOM
4
Real
4
ever.