}} INFERNO by Irwin Allen Sealy |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










INFERNO by Irwin Allen Sealy

KSB belongs here the motherfucker, with every other rapist.
Pillywinks and rack and lubricated mincer mouth await his pleasure—
except the prick is ten years dead and gone. How apportion his pain?

Observe. Deaf to pandemonium the ear-cleaner insinuates
his pick; groans greet the red-cap’s subtle mining. Garlanded with tape
the bespoke tailor measures each comer for a nettle shirt;

his pins and needles steel the timid. Lastly the blue-rinse
ophthamologist implants the latest Prado frames
that growing through bone awaken new ways of seeing

around corners. Look, she whispers, abstractionism’s had its day.
Slip on these real time glasses that accurately parse eternity.
Recall how just when you’d got the hang of living it was time to die?

Only dying were you in earnest about life, grasping too late
the value of what you gave away, yes? Just so as you exchange
your bright self for this vale of shadows you’ll come

to long for a reprieve—and come it will.
Now watch yourself (shepherded by souls who thought they’d got away:
see them file in on the far side?) of your own volition arrive

at a sense of justice, and armed with a fuller understanding
of the four last things
elect to stay.

 

 

 

← Irwin Allan Sealy