Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Devil Came Down to FaceBook

The Devil Came Down to FaceBook

I logged myself on FaceBook

I passed the password test

I found I had two messages

And a pending friend request

I scanned the messages quickly

Which two of my friends had penned

And then I saw the notification:

Satan wants to be your friend.

Now I didn’t really think it was Satan

I know he’s not really alive.

But I’ve got more than six hundred friends

In fact I’ve got six sixty-five.

And I felt sure it wasn’t Satan

FaceBook must be beyond his old tricks.

But if I accepted his friendship

He’d be number 6 6 6.

“What can it hurt?” I thought boldly.

It’s a joke, he can’t be on the level

I clicked on confirm: my screen turned blood red;

And that’s how I befriended the devil.

“Thank you for adding me,” he wrote on my wall.

“I now own your soul, and you’ll be in my thrall.

Let the innocent hearts feel the fear that I strike.”

I read all of this. And then I pressed LIKE.

My real friends were uneasy

Any fool could see that

I was bombarded with messages

Through FaceBook’s instant chat.

You’ve befriended the devil

He’s the father of sin

You need to act fast

You should delete and block him.

I laughed at their warnings

I said, “Take a chill pill.”

And I closed down the chat

And opened Farmville

Imagine my horror.

My crops had been blighted

My fields were left barren

My barns had been ignited.


My livestock were missing

I’d lost the fruits of my labour

And a slow pulsing message said:

Satan’s your new neighbour.

So I quickly left Farmville

And went to Café World

And here greater horror

Slowly unfurled.

My kitchens were closed

My tables were broken

My finances drained

of every last token

A slow pulsing message

Told me I could not play

And it added that Satan

Had closed my café.

I was imprisoned in Mafia Wars

Satan now ruled

And all matching gems

Had been nicked from bejewelled.

My superwall was crumbling

The Happy Aquarium had turned sad

He’d nuked Restaurant City

The devil is bad.

I turned to my friends with my problem

I figured they’d do what they can

But I saw, when I rechecked my profile.

I was left with one friend – just Satan.

I PM’d him. I poked him. I tried to defriend him.

None of it worked in the end.

A message appeared: “Oops! An error occurred.”

And it said Satan still was my friend.

So I deleted myself off of FaceBook.

And I opened a brand new account.

And I’ve slowly won back the old friends that I’d lost

And my lake in Farmville has got trout.

If you’re on MySpace or FaceBook or Twitter

Ignore Satan’s friendship request

It’s clear you’ve not got much life to begin with.

Please don’t let the Devil get the rest.

Report him, ignore him, or block him

Do whatever it takes in the end

But whatever you do just remember:

You must never make Satan your friend.

16 comments:

  1. Hey Ash,

    This is brilliant.

    You really should post it on your Wall...!

    Hugs,
    Lisabet

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Lisabet,

    Thank you. I'm hoping to read this one this weekend at a Halloween event.

    And my apologies to everyone on the list for my absence over the past week. I'm having the pleasure of living through interesting times. It's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be ;-)

    Best,

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kathleen,

    It's the bejewelled issues that would worry me. ;-)

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ashley!

    Where have been keeping this, just as you're packing up? You're twisting our hearts to make us miss you more. This is so much fun. Great post.

    Garce

    ReplyDelete
  5. Priceless, Ash. When I saw the headline I had to pop over here and read it. I loved it.

    Happy Halloween to all my old friends at the Grip!

    Jenna

    ReplyDelete
  6. Garce,

    Thank you. This is one I've been working on for a performance on Sunday. I'm hoping it goes down well.

    Best,

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jenna,

    Happy Halloween back to you and I'm glad the poem entertained.

    Best,

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's a long long time since I read something as original and funny and scary as this - and in verse too.

    Wonderful stuff

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mike,

    Thank you. I enjoy playing with verse. I'm hoping to read this at a Halloween event on Sunday night, along with some Hilaire Belloc and a couple of pieces by my hero: William Topaz McGonagall.

    Best,

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's very cool! Worthy of being included in a print publication somewhere, or made into a comic sketch.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Fulani,

    Thank you. If I can get any of my poetry placed with a publisher, I'll be letting everyone on here know about it :-)

    Best,

    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi, again,

    The only thing is, ten years from now, nobody will understand this because of all the topical references!

    It's a snapshot of an era -- as well as glorious parody.

    Hugs,
    Lisabet

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi Lisabet,

    I look forward to reading it in a decade when children are saying to their parents, "What's Farmville?" and parents are saying, "I can't remember."

    Ash

    ReplyDelete

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