GUEST BLOG ...POETRY! Even Hell Has Its Anecdotes by Dennis Patrick Slattery

EVEN HELL HAS ITS ANECDOTES

Even Hell has its anecdotes

infernal verse in Dante’s

corkscrew descent.

In confusion he

hears the howling laments.

Muddied, excremental

now trapped in place

the shades of sorrow

suffer the entire race.

Charged by the chaos

of self-absorbed love

of souls too small to see another

the pilgrim emerges at the base

of the mountain to climb to the

Sacred Mother.

“Master, what are they saying?

I hear only garbled words.”

Virgil glances back

At the pilgrim’s fraught nerves.

“These souls,” he claims,

“thought God was not within

but only a replica of her or him.”

Gracious in fields of spites and fits

the pilgrim’s mentor coaxes

The poet on.

“Remember when you return to life

use words that retrieve their lexicon.

Only memory will guide you then

between the now of blood

and the fate of the shades’

woeful den.”

©2017 Even Hell Has Its Anecdotes, Dennis Patrick Slattery
copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved

notes

Gustave Dore, "Cocytus", 1857, Image in public domain. The use of the image in the meme illustration in no way implies  artist endorsement.