[The excerpts that follow are from a new work of mine
scheduled for publication later this year by Lunar Chandelier
Collective: 34 poems
and a coda derived loosely from the cantos and circles of Dante’s Inferno, “for
the infernos and hungers of the worlds around us.”]
INFERNO 1
In the middle
of the journey
words began to change
words began to change
my hand tore loose from yours
trying to turn the wheel
but growing
numb
INFERNO 2
Daylight was going fast
the sky awash with stars
like blood or sand
the company around us
growing feckless
unable to find a place to rest
INFERNO 3
God is pain
& leaves us a broken door
to crawl though
that the wind snaps shut
trapping the mind inside
unable to find a place to rest
INFERNO 4
Limbo
Thunder overhead breaks hard
the more it sounds
the more they run from it
poor prisoners inside
a house of plundered dreams
INFERNO 5
A light that drives them blind
they stray abandoned
thinking of the chances lost
of bodies raw & flailing
in a muddy wind
INFERNO 6
Those who have gorged too much
are hungry still
never too full to calm their
craving
the more they eat
the more they need to
go on eating
A
BOOK OF INFERNOS
Coda
A
man with three mouths
once
imagined
sucks
out the life from those
he
swallows
the privilege of
the rich
escaped & safe
the sky no longer
beckoning
who hide behind
each other
driving back
the dark invaders
they are the final
guides
for this inferno
guarding what they
build
& plunder
under a black sun
that will lead us
to another world
a gilded hell
the hungry earth
absent a dream
unable to call us
home
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