Francis Levy's Divine Comedy
Francis Levys Divine Comedy
Inferno, Canto 1
Seven Eighths of the way through my journey
(an overly optimistic figure some had cautioned)
I found myself in a darkened box
in which the inner workings of my heart
would be read
I was old enough to flirt with Dante
(like Beatrice)
I boldly compared myself to Augustine
Was I headed for heaven or hell
(on a daily basis)?
or isnt Limbo where the unbaptized land
its like applying to colleges
you dream of heaven
expect at least Purgatory
and allow yourself the delusion
that youre doing pretty good
if you land in the first circle of hell
(if you look at the curve its almost
a B plus)
on a cloudy day not in the month
of May, but sullen and humid,
the kind of day you would have hopelessly walked
in Central Park, a beer in a brown bag,
looking for your Beatrice decades before
you had finally lived
in dreams begin responsibilities, Delmore
Schwartz said
revelations pass by and unless I scribble them
down theyre gone for good like cotton balls
at this stage where only the engraved long term
memories remain
abracadabra no magic was going to occur
I had to carefully vet the minutes and seconds
as they flashed across the scrim of consciousness
and the empty seats at the table
a full accounting was required
I still travelled,
but unlike Aquinus employed neither reason nor
faith
my solitary arrival greeted by the same Dunkin
Donuts
my beginning was the end
hindsight always being 20/20
there were no choices
I arrived fresh from the factory with a lifetime warranty
I would be this way
Thats what this hell
must be
stranger anxiety
you remember Capgras
and prosopagnosia
where the face is inhabited by an imposter
or someone you cant recognize.
I spot the faces of infamous
fictive sinners,
whove aided and abetted
theres Babbitt and Rabbit
and therere all the reviled
and detested Inquisitors whove
boiled us in oil, those
whose fuel is indifference and scorn
and the failure to appreciate
worthy talent, those
who never respond to e mails or return
calls
and then there are the guiltless
transgressors
who are even
praised for their artful
seductions,
insouciant and merry
even their castaways
clapping for them
their legacy of destruction
rewarded
it was worse that I was no longer
fueled by envy
the pathetic creatures
who employed
randy swordsmen
in rusting armor
Im no better
is the real surprise
Im one of them
in thought if not in deed
but it doesnt really
matter since I will never
see any of them again
(either on earth or in hell)
you attain that point of maturity
when people pass into
oblivion before they die
theyre unrecognizable
and sometimes you even cant
remember them
what day is it?
Thursday all day,
Im at the beginning of
my daily journey, the number 6
on the Lexington Avenue line
its just another day
like the reduction of a gravy
sardined in among the straphangers
and claustrophobic in my isolation