(The result of an Enlish assignment to mimic Dante's inferno using a set rythum and form) TEN REALMS
By Brian Bosworth
November 20, 1997

From life’s conscience I am falling
Ah, so this is the taste of death,
O how rancid is the tasting!

Surrounded by uncreation,
My point of origin is hid,
As is my destination.

I fall through windless, limitless void
Is this pit my finality?
Am I becoming paranoid?

And what do my eyes percieve, lo?
A dark marble floor approaching,
I brace myself for the harsh blow.

Echoes announce my entry
My empty soul impacts the stone,
But no one is standing sentry.

Strange, I felt not the impact,
But feel the stone, firm and cold.
I try to stand but my muscles contract.

A shaft of light from which I fell
Now illuminates my body.
I kneel in the center of Hell.

My ashen flesh brings me to stand.
Around my surroundings I do look,
At the entrance of God’s reprimand.

Marble columns arise nearby,
Framing colossal entryways
From which I hear destiny’s cry.

Suddenly everything becomes silent,
Entering through the doors is a mist,
And hot and humid becomes the climate.

In an eternal slowness the mist comes,
Surrounding and encompassing my feet.
My soul has entered spiritual doldrums.

I hear the scratching of claws on the stone,
But nothing is in the mist, but mist.
And I hear voices of an evil tone.

Slithering, rippling whispers are they,
Whether hearing them with my ears or with
My terrified mind I cannot say.

The thousands of whispers speak not to me,
But they do speak to each other of me.
Deaf to the words, I still know their honesty.

All at once a billow of mist leaps for
My wrist, clasping an invisible chain.
Then it pulls me through the door of Hell’s core.

Upon entering the first realm of Hell,
I enter the DOMAIN OF UNPURE THOUGHTS,
Where the men are punished who think not well.

Swimming and sinking in bottomless mire
Of boiling mud as clean as their thoughts,
Purifying with heat their sins of desire.

Trapped between two surfaces they
Swim till strength withdraws from limb,
They sink in seas of molten clay

Till second surface they attain
To swim again endlessly, their
Thoughts imprisoning them in vain.

Their hell falls behind as the mist pulls me
Closer to mine, while I enter Realm Two:
The hellish PROVINCE OF MENDACITY.

Here live the men of lies and deceit,
Here live men who’s tongues burn with fire.
Here live the men: damnation complete.

The whispering mist escorts my damned soul
Onward and into the VENUE OF GREED.
Men of avarice march past me mournful

Of the material things they desired
More than their God or family on Earth,
For now that the men have been retired,

Those things are master to them in their hell,
As they’re chained to all that they coveted.
Dragging their weighty loads, their faces pale.

One time or another I was at fault
For all of these crimes, but I do know why
The whispering mist keeps its onward assault.

My fear begins to distinguish,
From one cavern to the next, I proceed
In my descent to infinite anguish.

My inward reflections shattered,
I walk into a maze of mirror.
Realm four- LABYRINTH OF REFLECTION.

Men of vanity and of pride
Now wander aimlessly seeing
Their ugly souls, nowhere to hide.

Continuing on, foulness decaying
Fills the air I breathe, rotten flesh creates
The stench in here that is stifling.
Zone five, the HALL OF SELF-DESECRATION
Looms by my side, here rack the poor souls
Of suicide, drugs, and addiction.

The cruelty to their body persists,
Diseases replace the physical means
Of endless self-abuse, then calls the mist.

THE KINGDOM OF MORAL DIGRESS
I beg the mist, let me lie here,
I fear to go on I confess.

And stay with the ghosts that never would let
Carnal appetites go unsatisfied,
Captive in stone they will now pay their debt.

But the mist ushers it’s captive onward
To the PARADISE OF ANIMOSITY
In Realm Eight there resides an evil horde.

Their every nerve oversensitized,
Repaying all the sensitivity
They denied their victim’s whimpering cries.

Cowering to the smallest sensation
They bow in pain to whispers and breath
The mist is numb to their lamentation.

Inward thoughts are shrieking, “Immortal doom”,
“Go back, go back”, but now I face:
The threshold of my doom.

The TEMPLE OF DESTINY DENIED
My footsteps echo walking down the stairs
The transparent chains clatter to my side.

The mist retreats, now leaving me alone,
A mirror beckons me, I sit down and gaze.
In horror, my ashen face turns to stone:

In place of my image, my victim’s face.
An empty cradle, a silent home,
All hopes and dreams stilled, by a life erased.

She sits there on the other side, I peer
Into her eyes. I see her memories,
Her life, her joys reflecting from the mirror.

I see her now, not as a pawn,
To be sacrificed at my will,
Never, to see another dawn.

She was a human being, not mine to take
My thoughts are now shadowed by hers,
Her cherished memories become mine, I ache.

In anguish they are cut short never to come to pass
Snatched by a strangers hand,.... my hand.

We leave him, now, staring silently into the glass.

If only he knew- it could be worse,
For those who deny God,
Or glorify Lucifer, must endure this curse:

By denying God, they are in return
Denied of everything He created.
Even for Nothing they will yearn,

For in SILENCE, even Nothing cannot remain,
Nothing has definition, boundaries,
SILENCE does not. An immeasurable domain.
It has no beginning, no end, and no essence.....