We slosh along through sewage to a smell
so full-on that we’re forced to catch our breath.
The rising currents from the holding cells
much further down escarpments; smells of death
are emanating from the nearby tombs.
“So who is buried here? Says on the left
it’s ‘Major Walter Clopton Wingfield’. Who…?!
Was he a heretic?” “Depends on what
you think of ‘Real Tennis’, I presume.”
he chuckles “While we’re waiting on this spot
acclimatising to the odours here,
you’ll need to occupy your mind while hot…”
“Well there’s another tomb that’s also near:
it’s Henry Edward Manning (Cardinal
to you!) A heretic?” “Err… We appear
to be quite sidetracked now. If I can pull
your focus back to where we’re going next
and let the reader Google him in full.
Dear boy, I see that you are quite perplexed.
So let’s describe this in a verbal map,
before the story’s flow’s completely wrecked.
It’s Circle Seven next beyond this crap
containing three concentric circles like
Matryoshka Dolls are tightly inter-wrapped
together, packed…” he squeezed his hands up tight
six inches right in front of me and stared.
“The Violent go well beyond a fight.
Tradition says the Violent have dared
to act against a neighbour, God or self…”
The conversation twists. I’m un-prepared
for poems stigmatising mental health.
The Violent I fully understand,
but suicide is one alarming bell
of ethics baked and cast in clay-less sand
– a rigour mortis logic long since dead
and slipping through the fingers of my hands.
” and then beyond that further on ahead
the Fraudsters – even worse than Violent.”
“Eh?!? Fraud is worse?! Not Violent instead?”
He glowers at me. “You’ll see what I meant.”
“Go back a bit though Patrick, let me grasp
this Violence you told me: Re-present
that argument again before the last
and final circle that we hit. Un-pack
it some. For me you’re going much to fast.”
“Well also Usurers are at the back.”
“Wait, Usurers are Violent? How come?”
“It seems to me your taking the wrong tack.
Not knowing in advance won’t make you dumb.
Your writing this progresses, then you find
your way through things. Just try to let them run.
The point of Art is finding things from blind,
and making things works through the unknown mess
you’ll piece it all together in good time.
Move on against your apprehensiveness.”
Social tagging: dante > inferno > plumbing > poetry
