“Inferno” by Marina Petro
(A modest homage to Dante)
abandon hope all ye who enter here
melt into the matrix of unclean souls
become one with the stygian night
a miasma of ill-conceived dreams
swirls in cornerless shadows aflame
with dead screams in a sulfurous air
down unspeakable steps of gauged agony
leading to the basest of sinners who
practiced betrayal as branded by Judas
caught frozen for time beyond end
in perpetual pain of the ice-pit
fourth nethermost ring of the final
ninth circle where the faces of Satan
make meals of the fear and the guilt
come too late to the worst of the damned
Poesy plus Polemics 