here i am
holding on
to relics of your love
after all
i was born
to be on my knees
in worship,
searching for salvation
devoting my life
to the scent
of your skin
the trace of your fingers
the memory
of your mouth on mine
and i know now
i would face
all nine levels of hell
just to hear
my name leave your lips
as feverant as prayer
once more.

I was given at age thirty
Many vision
Many messages
Of the world to come
The first the pandemic
The war in Ukraine
And something much worse
I was also sent to tour hell
As I went through with
The protection of an arch angel
I see that gory scenes of just 3 circle and 9 sub circles
And a poison desert
For the worst of humans

Each emination,
Hot as an inferno.
The breath I let escape
Burns before it boils,
Serpent, tongue coil.
The way you worked me;
Nailed the coffin, spread the soil.

Sinister Omens.
The ocean runs blood
As our trees burn into the ground.
Evil is spiraling in gray clouds,
Starting the thundering of trumpets
In the city of the sky.

Nine levels are being climbed,
With fire and blood on their hands.
Plagues and curses
Were just the beginning.

As difficult as it is to say,
We are deserved of our sins,
People of the land.

He peeled away time, like dead skin on fingertips
An irritant needing of disposal like all wasted things
Each layer increasingly painful to touch, but demanding an attention too strong to protest
Not knowing what exactly lies at the end, but tightly grasping the edges of his mind’s ferry as it lurched deeper in
Scraping into the recesses of inferno, past showy flames
Stopping only at the bottom, hitting solid ground, still and cold
A modest ghost land, non-boasting
Completely justified by its own barrenness
Indisputably, the first instance
There he laid himself to rest a while
Coddled in the dirt
A sense of security reminiscent of the womb where it started, back to the beginning
And while lying there, seeking comfort through this fever chill of a journey, looking up he saw it
What it must have been all along
A childhood memory, living only in the mind, but living all the same
A defining moment
Something simple, whose significance couldn’t be challenged, but whose existence was something uncertain
A mystery only partially figured out
But enough to know when to stop
Just a reverie, he reassured himself
And with that piled on each layer again and again until he reached the surface once more
Back to a familiar setting, cool and breathable
Maybe suggestive of a lower level
But probably not.