Dante In The Laundromat Journeys Further Into Hell Beginning With Two Lines From The Book
At some false semblance in the twilight gloom
that from this terror you may free yourself
posthaste, gracelessly cast out, the closing
hour now come, caught in 'spin cycle' after
'hard rinse, ' an entire bottle of fabric softener
cannot unstiffen mythic threads,
the ancient weaves fray,
displace, are 'undone, so many'
beneath the winnowing rotors
that beat, beat with hope,
slosh, wash all sins away.
Yet gathers the dirt,
there's more sin ahead
heady in floral scents.
After midnight, beneath
bright florescence I read
Dante, his Inferno, of Hell's
seven rungs, my last quarter
gone, and clothes, two baskets
still to dry.
The guide book sums:
'Level 2
You have come to a place mute of all light,
where the wind bellows as the sea does in a
tempest. This is the realm where the lustful
spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around
endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable
desire as punishment for their transgressions.
The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles
the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them
round, and smiting, it molests them. You have
betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite
for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain.
Cleopatra and Helen of Troy
are two that share in your fate.' **
Not bad company
but no quarter to pay
for Virgil's rude company
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poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
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