Prologue
That any man's intrinsically good
was a fallacy for the Devil.
To prove it so he chose a monk
to turn from Good to Evil -
a man of prayerful diligence,
a man with marked resilience
against Temptations snare.
While other's faults he would atone
in faultlessness he stood alone
in piety and prayer.
And he, each day, from Genesis
to Revelations read,
but the Devil's plan
was to gain the man
as he slept each night abed.
Now, not far from the chapel
there lay a foul morass
and deep within its mire
the Devil did amass
every theoretical
doubt that was heretical
that, whispered with insistence,
and, nightly, with persistence
could erode resistance
and turn a soul of pious bent
into a raving malcontent.
And, each night, as mist these rose
to drift across the chapel close
and seep inside and to the bed
to wreath around the sleeper's head.
For two full moons the man, it seems,
knew nights of deep disturbing dreams
that stayed to haunt him through the day
and taunt him when he knelt to pray -
a succubus, vampiric wraith,
that slowly drained him of his faith.
Epilogue
As a reservoir of Evil breathes a myriad of sins
the undulating quagmire oozes forth its putrid mist.
Insidious as whispers in the psyche's oubliette,
opaque, it moves between stark pines and, over lair and sett,
to seep beneath the chapel door
and creep across the flagstoned floor
to where, by altar candlelight,
the monk, now Devil's acolyte,
around the blood-drawn pentagram
is circling widdershins.
Gold trophy winner
Adding your comment:
I've been getting a kick out of everyone throwing their 
in with it 
Now on to the poem 
