October Poetry Challenge: Meet you in Hell!

[annaswirls]

Challenge:


1. Write a poem (or series of poems) inspired by or based upon the Circles of Hell described in the poem "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri. (here translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)


Note: You do not need to read the entire translation (eh hem) there are links provided below (and please, if you find any great references, please post them on this thread.)


2. Post your poem/s in this thread by October 25.

3. Of all the hellish poems you have written, select one to be lined up with the other "usual suspects" in an all for fun contest.

Details for the contest will be described at a later date. For now, just WRITE em.

..........

NOTES:

You do not have to believe in hell to write a poem about it.
You do not have to know anything about Dante or his poetry in order to join. Trust me. I do not know anything about either and am hosting the challenge

If you wrote some already for the false start challenge I put up in the 30 day thread, they are acceptable for use in this challenge, but try to write a new one as well if you can. Other than that, please write something new.


PLEASE:
If you know of poets who post in the new poems but do not actively participate in the forum, please consider inviting them into this challenge/contest.
......

Some references (and other fun things)​

What level of hell are you headed for?

Dante's Inferno Test - Impurity, Sin... and Damnation

Wikipedia:

The Divine Comedy

Very Cool and Inspiring Graphics as well as original text and interpretations and even Italian audio. Besides, it was put out by UT (Hook 'em horns!")
Dante's Inferno



Links to other Dante sites (containing the text of the poem):

Digital Dante:
http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/new/index.html

The World of Dante:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/dante/

Princeton Dante Project:
etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/index.html

Dante Online:
www.danteonline.it/italiano/home_ita.asp

 

[annaswirls]

Something to Consider:

Please feel free to write REACTIONARY ie Passionate poetry here. Do not feel the need to put up something polished and pretty or perfect! If you read something about the poem or ideas, please consider this a safe place to write out your thoughts. It is what I intend to do, and would love the company.

While this poetry does not need to be confessional in nature, consider taking this opportunity to celebrate or explore your own glorious imperfections. Lets try to make this a safe place to fuck around without being judged.

 

[normal jean]

hey Swirly!

IM going tO nearly Virginia to work, in about 3 hours...I will miss this one too, lol

Eve, are you close to Danville? I will have sundays off and could come stalk you if you want me to



m

 

[annaswirls]

hey Swirly!

IM going tO nearly Virginia to work, in about 3 hours...I will miss this one too, lol

Eve, are you close to Danville? I will have sundays off and could come stalk you if you want me to



m

hmm. I bet you could write it down on paper? when will you next be near a computer

outing:
I want Normal to be able to play​

 

[WickedEve]

hey Swirly!

IM going tO nearly Virginia to work, in about 3 hours...I will miss this one too, lol

Eve, are you close to Danville? I will have sundays off and could come stalk you if you want me to



m

Just checked the google map and I'm about 100 miles. It shows that I'd have to go through lynchburg to get there. I haven't gone near lynchburg in years. Every time I cross that mountain, I barf.

I wrote a circles of hell poem a couple of years ago. I'll try to find it and edit it. Would that be cheating?

 

[annaswirls]

Just checked the google map and I'm about 100 miles. It shows that I'd have to go through lynchburg to get there. I haven't gone near lynchburg in years. Everytime I cross that mountain, I barf.

I wrote a circles of hell poem a couple of years ago. I'll try to find it and edit it. Would that be cheating?

I think that should be okay-- and if it is cheating, than so be it

just write an addendum stating as such, and which level of hell you will be visiting due to said cheating

 

[arienette]

Hey, this is really neat. I love how you refer to it as a 'false start' from the 30 poems in 30 days thread. I made it to six poems before striking out, I believe. This is coming at a great time, though, I had already starting writing some ideas down for a new poem today and this could be just what I need to actually get it written down in some sort of format. Although, it was going to prose.

 

[annaswirls]

Dear Moderators, could you please, if it is in your power to do so....

1. Change the name of this thread to say "October Poetry Challenge: Meet you in Hell! I tried but it did not stick.

2. Add it to the "Awards and Contests" forum (or should I ask Laurel)

THANKS!

 

[normal jean]

hmm. I bet you could write it down on paper? when will you next be near a computer

outing:
I want Normal to be able to play​

well, Normal WANTS to play...who knows, that power plant mightbe hell, and Iw ill come away with a terrific poem

I wrote one about bolts and nuts, did you see it on the passion thread?


miss you anna

 

[WickedEve]

Dear Moderators, could you please, if it is in your power to do so....

1. Change the name of this thread to say "October Poetry Challenge: Meet you in Hell! I tried but it did not stick.

2. Add it to the "Awards and Contests" forum (or should I ask Laurel)

THANKS!

#1 is done.
#2... Lauren, do you know the answer?

 

[annaswirls]

#1 is done.
#2... Lauren, do you know the answer?

Damn you are fast! Thank you! ​

 

[champagne1982]

I'm going to try to write some new stuff. My seven sins poems took me through most of the levels of hell. My fave being Lust..

 

[Lauren Hynde]

#2... Lauren, do you know the answer?

The Awards & Contests forum is Laurel's exclusive turf. It may be better to ask her.

 

[bogusbrig]

Sorry everyone but I got verbal diarhroea last night, though I did have a couple of stanzas on my hard drive I had hanging around for awhile. Actually it was as much inspired by an unpleasant experience of being under anaesthetic as by Dante.


Flarity

It's was question of co-ordination
As I laid awake in sullen Yorkshire
Oppressed beneath the ceiling’s pressing weight
Where I nursed my resentment
And planned revenge against the world
How to eliminate a few small enemies
Maybe dispose of some honest competition
Along with some innocent minor irritants

Once you accept the inevitable logic
Where do you stop, with your parents?
Well they too seemed intent on stalking me that night
Fidgeting like creepers in the drape of shadows
The crack on the contracting staircase
Or was it her jesting her way around my house?
Busying herself in the nooks and crannies
Rummaging through my laundry like a frustrated private eye

I laid there, corpse like, waiting for forensics
Obliging in my submission to the pathologist's brutal scalpel
My blemishes a totaling of accounts
Passively recorded and weighed against me
Like the heart that beats too often it's merely an accusation
But the facts require this as evidence
Before passing quickly onto the liver

A mosquito circled its irritation
I was too cold for its attraction, meat without the blood
The brain without the heart, all meaning and little purpose
While my bladder swelled like a bag of insults I refused to empty
I indolently endured my discomfort and considered my plight
Self fulfilling the multiplication of my insignificance
The mortuary was quiet and there had been no visitors

enie meenie miney mo
who is the first
that’s going to go?​

It was a mental and physical dislocation
A malady that caused paralysis
Sucking me into an internal vanishing point
Spiraling down to where lucid daylight stubbornly resisted
A metabolic malfunction causing disorientation
An agoraphobia where the mind opens up
Expanding into an endless space without horizons

‘We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love.’

The dimly lit corridor of amber lights
And white tiled walls, where they pushed me
An extrusion through a labyrinth of corridors
Talking heads and figures in masks and goggles
Uttered clipped instructions in muffled voices
Their breathing, heavy and regular

Why am I here in this abattoir?
Why am I abandoned in this stark white room?
Why the electrodes, why am I restrained in straps?
The heavy clunk of the lock tolled like a bell
Her venomous voice, sharp and uncomfortable
The silent violence of falling, falling, falling

Blackness that eats blackness
Where lice devour you
You are torn apart
In a pit of violent winds

Skinned like a rabbit
Your every nerve exposed
Stretched like elastic
Muscles stress and rip

Your limbs flail
Joints hit back on themselves
Twisted into a corkscrew
Mangled guts aflame

But the loneliness
The loneliness is overwhelming
The harrowing solitude
The endless process of dying​

The inevitable consequence of being in conflict with gravity
With arms outstretched, fragile as Icarus wings
Silhouetted against the fire and now falling fast
The ground looming up hard as an anvil
I reached a point in the turbulence
Where I looped back on myself
Everything hits a point of stability

I had to use my charm to seduce the warders
Reassemble my body parts so I could function
So I could impart with you this act of passion
On an evening pregnant with tension
When I watch you tread the floor of your apartment
Unaware I am abroad in the sweat filled night
But should you listen you would hear my footsteps

Hippity hopity
Death brings clarity
You’re the next
To be eaten by Flarity​

I am closer, ever nearer to your door
I am in a state of agitation and my anxiety is high
My requirements are such that I am animal
My jaws ache through my desire to bite
And the sweet silver sweat upon your neck, an elixir I need to taste
Across the urban sprawl violence screams
Your scream will be but a footnote in the morning news

Now this scenario is entirely of my invention
Nothing takes place without my approval
But there is one decision I will allow you to make
The door is unlocked and in the lock, a key
You can lock the door and bring this poem to a close
I will scream and curse you but I will ultimately leave
Or you can leave it unlocked and confront your fears

My steps are audible now along the pavement
They are heavy and regular as I approach your door
The consequences of the next few lines are in your hands
Your clothes will be scattered and your body abused
Your desire to eye ball your fate will be upon you
I eye your door and my hand reaches for the handle
It turns, clicks and the door swings open…………..

 

[sweetjain]

The Wood of Thorns

She says it is because of the pressure
but she has no job, few deadlines, just feet
tapping quietly
tapping and she tells me to listen closer
because it's hard to hear them, lodged as they are
in the shoulders of her father.

He intimidates from doorways, an impassable tree
of gnarled walnut upon whose shoulders
perches the harpy
who answers to "mother."

The harpy pushes out her thick belly
squeezes her shrunken ass to keep her hold
as she flaps her wings, shaking black feathers
making us wonder if she ever loved
her daughter victim.

She croaks between pages of the father's code
between lines
and it is here, in that unstopping hiss
that I hear it. I could easily miss
her snide insults. So carefully
she belittles her progeny, gnawing
her daughter toe by toe
as if in regret of her birth.

When the entree is served, the harpy hops
in halting flight to the exposed arm
of the younger woman, pecking with vulturous beak
and it is these metaphorical wounds
the daughter will retrace in steel
in flirtations of suicide
bloodletting without leeches
x-acto knife letters begging with blood
marring again and again
their perfect child.

 

[annaswirls]

Circle 4: Avarice and Prodigality

the floor
with pillows and
a blanket
for our stretch and sweet slumber
soft enough while we wait
no money down
no interest for twelve months
open your fist can't you see I need a place to sit?

roll along roll along these rocks
we come together
coins clenched
you want to feed these strangers tenderloin and red wine
dark chocolate confections from that Pâtisserie you saw
the day we pretended to be tourists
our fortune inhaled
pissed down the drain

eyebrow pressed I roll this rock
crush your toes
you will pay for the feast twice

 

[annaswirls]

dayum!!!! what an intense trip!

I will be back to get deeper into this one, absolutely.

The italicized inserts were very potent, I like how you introduced the change in voice.

Please no apologies, this was (um I cannot say pleasure.... what is the word?) this was a ..... journey....

Sorry everyone but I got verbal diarhroea last night, though I did have a couple of stanzas on my hard drive I had hanging around for awhile. Actually it was as much inspired by an unpleasant experience of being under anaesthetic as by Dante.


Flarity

It's was question of co-ordination
As I laid awake in sullen Yorkshire
Oppressed beneath the ceiling’s pressing weight
Where I nursed my resentment
And planned revenge against the world
How to eliminate a few small enemies
Maybe dispose of some honest competition
Along with some innocent minor irritants

Once you accept the inevitable logic
Where do you stop, with your parents?
Well they too seemed intent on stalking me that night
Fidgeting like creepers in the drape of shadows
The crack on the contracting staircase
Or was it her jesting her way around my house?
Busying herself in the nooks and crannies
Rummaging through my laundry like a frustrated private eye

I laid there, corpse like, waiting for forensics
Obliging in my submission to the pathologist's brutal scalpel
My blemishes a totaling of accounts
Passively recorded and weighed against me
Like the heart that beats too often it's merely an accusation
But the facts require this as evidence
Before passing quickly onto the liver

A mosquito circled its irritation
I was too cold for its attraction, meat without the blood
The brain without the heart, all meaning and little purpose
While my bladder swelled like a bag of insults I refused to empty
I indolently endured my discomfort and considered my plight
Self fulfilling the multiplication of my insignificance
The mortuary was quiet and there had been no visitors

enie meenie miney mo
who is the first
that’s going to go?​

It was a mental and physical dislocation
A malady that caused paralysis
Sucking me into an internal vanishing point
Spiraling down to where lucid daylight stubbornly resisted
A metabolic malfunction causing disorientation
An agoraphobia where the mind opens up
Expanding into an endless space without horizons

‘We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love.’

The dimly lit corridor of amber lights
And white tiled walls, where they pushed me
An extrusion through a labyrinth of corridors
Talking heads and figures in masks and goggles
Uttered clipped instructions in muffled voices
Their breathing, heavy and regular

Why am I here in this abattoir?
Why am I abandoned in this stark white room?
Why the electrodes, why am I restrained in straps?
The heavy clunk of the lock tolled like a bell
Her venomous voice, sharp and uncomfortable
The silent violence of falling, falling, falling

Blackness that eats blackness
Where lice devour you
You are torn apart
In a pit of violent winds

Skinned like a rabbit
Your every nerve exposed
Stretched like elastic
Muscles stress and rip

Your limbs flail
Joints hit back on themselves
Twisted into a corkscrew
Mangled guts aflame

But the loneliness
The loneliness is overwhelming
The harrowing solitude
The endless process of dying​

The inevitable consequence of being in conflict with gravity
With arms outstretched, fragile as Icarus wings
Silhouetted against the fire and now falling fast
The ground looming up hard as an anvil
I reached a point in the turbulence
Where I looped back on myself
Everything hits a point of stability

I had to use my charm to seduce the warders
Reassemble my body parts so I could function
So I could impart with you this act of passion
On an evening pregnant with tension
When I watch you tread the floor of your apartment
Unaware I am abroad in the sweat filled night
But should you listen you would hear my footsteps

Hippity hopity
Death brings clarity
You’re the next
To be eaten by Flarity​

I am closer, ever nearer to your door
I am in a state of agitation and my anxiety is high
My requirements are such that I am animal
My jaws ache through my desire to bite
And the sweet silver sweat upon your neck, an elixir I need to taste
Across the urban sprawl violence screams
Your scream will be but a footnote in the morning news

Now this scenario is entirely of my invention
Nothing takes place without my approval
But there is one decision I will allow you to make
The door is unlocked and in the lock, a key
You can lock the door and bring this poem to a close
I will scream and curse you but I will ultimately leave
Or you can leave it unlocked and confront your fears

My steps are audible now along the pavement
They are heavy and regular as I approach your door
The consequences of the next few lines are in your hands
Your clothes will be scattered and your body abused
Your desire to eye ball your fate will be upon you
I eye your door and my hand reaches for the handle
It turns, clicks and the door swings open…………..

 

[annaswirls]

oh my god, this is going to be a month of nightmares! (hiding behind my chair)


the last lines were especially chilling...thank you (eek!) for joining in on this challenge!

She says it is because of the pressure
but she has no job, few deadlines, just feet
tapping quietly
tapping and she tells me to listen closer
because it's hard to hear them, lodged as they are
in the shoulders of her father.

He intimidates from doorways, an impassable tree
of gnarled walnut upon whose shoulders
perches the harpy
who answers to "mother."

The harpy pushes out her thick belly
squeezes her shrunken ass to keep her hold
as she flaps her wings, shaking black feathers
making us wonder if she ever loved
her daughter victim.

She croaks between pages of the father's code
between lines
and it is here, in that unstopping hiss
that I hear it. I could easily miss
her snide insults. So carefully
she belittles her progeny, gnawing
her daughter toe by toe
as if in regret of her birth.

When the entree is served, the harpy hops
in halting flight to the exposed arm
of the younger woman, pecking with vulturous beak
and it is these metaphorical wounds
the daughter will retrace in steel
in flirtations of suicide
bloodletting without leeches
x-acto knife letters begging with blood
marring again and again
their perfect child.

 

[champagne1982]

Purgatory - The Fifth Terrace

Caramels and jujubes, a scent
memory of guilty greed. A hidden
package inside a pocket, so full,
lies slip off a tongue stained with red,
unearned sweetness.

Repentance fills the space
inside once regret is emptied,
after being caught, the apology,
more difficult than earning

repayment. Costing an eternity
with greedy face ground
into dust, until earthy concern falls
away, making room for light.

 

[arienette]

She says it is because of the pressure
but she has no job, few deadlines, just feet
tapping quietly
tapping and she tells me to listen closer
because it's hard to hear them, lodged as they are
in the shoulders of her father.

He intimidates from doorways, an impassable tree
of gnarled walnut upon whose shoulders
perches the harpy
who answers to "mother."

The harpy pushes out her thick belly
squeezes her shrunken ass to keep her hold
as she flaps her wings, shaking black feathers
making us wonder if she ever loved
her daughter victim.

She croaks between pages of the father's code
between lines
and it is here, in that unstopping hiss
that I hear it. I could easily miss
her snide insults. So carefully
she belittles her progeny, gnawing
her daughter toe by toe
as if in regret of her birth.

When the entree is served, the harpy hops
in halting flight to the exposed arm
of the younger woman, pecking with vulturous beak
and it is these metaphorical wounds
the daughter will retrace in steel
in flirtations of suicide
bloodletting without leeches
x-acto knife letters begging with blood
marring again and again
their perfect child.

This is great, I love it. Especially the last few lines, they definitely pull the entire poem together.

 

[sweetjain]

This is great, I love it. Especially the last few lines, they definitely pull the entire poem together.

Thanks. I am glad you like it. I've known too many girls who cut themselves and when I saw the hell thread, I thought of them right away.

 

[arienette]

Thanks. I am glad you like it. I've known too many girls who cut themselves and when I saw the hell thread, I thought of them right away.

Understandably so.
There is a thread on self injurers over at the AH (where I post most of the time). You can find it here , if you're interested.

 

[lostandfounder]

first attempt

My first attempt couldn't quite make it all the way down to inferno level, but purgatory is close. That counts, right?

[Weight]

a tongue wraps around your ear
smooth and cold and moist
writing words upon your skin
“give up, give in”

and you listen

words slither inside
a slow and sexy rape
of a corpse lover
“Who cares?”

and you listen

The words grow heavy
like a child inside
a tumor with a soul
“it doesn’t matter”

and you listen

Birth’s day
black hole contractions
Collapse upon yourself
And it is born

child of an incest orgy
you
your apathy
yourself
yourselfloathing

sloth is born
to consume its parents
then starve itself to death

 

[annaswirls]

Circle 5: Wrath and Sullenness

What of anger then? Not allowed
to bark, growl or pee in the shoes of those
who do us wrong or even sulk about it
Sure as these weeds sprout like weeds so often do
after the first rain in weeks
anger starts its branches
following the path of artery and vein
before pushing through my fingertips

The damn dog does not even recognize me,
nails dig into my bark she tries to climb up,
catch the squirerels who hide their stash among my crevasses

If I had my choice, I would prefer to have my limbs
axed in the wrath of my enemies, to burn down to the roots
but God does not give choice to our kind,
eroded and fallen, sunken branches just below the water surface
snails leave their bitter trail
fungus follows

 

[SpectaclesInSkirt]

Horny as Hell

At the moment
I find myself in the darkening Midwest
Lacking
I have hands
Nails bitten down
Gnawed, born to oral fixation
Well, then,
Hands are the same as always
Older, though
Ringing themselves, ringing clear and crisp:
Everything changes.

1. A small thing in her castle
The slow drip of childhood
Hurrying
Of course my thoughts turned carnal
Unbaptized, undipped in sex
Grabbing myself, a virtuous pagan
Heroic
Thoughts of being tied down
I was always drawn to restraint
Longing to be bound
Licking my fingers afterwards in the dark

2. Throw the first deficient Heaven away
Initiate profanity
Fuck
Fuck me
A password
Not a curse
Yelled in my head at teachers, doctors, priests
God
I looked for my rapist in every man
Relegated to authority
Lust had me as a scout in his army

3. Middle school ended
On a high note
The last day I dressed in formal wear
Hid through the final classes
Ensconsed in the girls' room
Reaching down to pass the time
Stuffing myself, sucking the marrow
Laughing
Interested in what was to come
A new school meant playmates
Reasons to diet and learn tongue tricks

4. Misers
Assholes
Students
Thugs incapable of sexual imagination
Unable to seduce me
Barely able to master a simple sentence while using their hands
Anyone
Take me to an eloquent age
Engage me
Speak well

5. Hell yes, I do
Oh, whatever
Right
Not
You're such a liar
A liar
Slut
Hate you
Everyone does
Lazy bitch
Like you don't

6. Very far from home
In a city of discord
Ready for an active sin
Geared up for rule breaking
I possess an inconvenient integrity
No one may touch me
Sex crosses the street when I approach
This goes on for years
I get used to the chaste tomb
Lonely and burning
Licked by mint green fire

7. Bent, finally
Under a man
Twisted to his pleasure
Need
Opened
Laid, skinned by violence
Open for a stranger because my first love wouldn't have me
Nail the virgin's corpse to a branch
God, please
End my time in the desert
Rip me like an appointed harpy

8. Maybe you can twist my head forward
Enabling me to see past the past's hot pitch march
Nullify the false prophets of easy lays
Like the last one didn't
Ink my scorched feet
Even you have two capable hands
Tend to my sword wounds
Oversee my redemption
You can do what you want
Only please be something of substance
Undo every fraudulent pocket into which I leap

9. People in a chill place
Only know how to steal warmth
Only chew and claw to get the blood moving
Remember your face in the mirror
Cauled in sick betrayal
Offered up to early twenties cliche
Left to self reproach and hardening'
Divide your smile into three masks for the boys
Go out now
Alone in the world
Looking after only yourself

Ailing whore
A thought ill
Tiffany girl
Mother's liar
Masturbates
Horny as hell
Virgin Still
But no longer
Men lie to you
Poor cold gal

And here in Chicago there are no night stars