Hell
This is a poem I wrote back in December of 2016. I found it again and enjoyed its rediscovery. It is modeled off of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, among other influences, including Dante’s Divine Comedy, the myth of Persephone, the difficulties of translation, and general themes related to the underworld.
Hell
by Talia Franks
Hope is a source of suffering.
The crime, and the punishment,
is to exist.
You cannot undo your birth.
Picked off one by one
sauntering towards the sun
rustling through my skin
you opened up while I crawled in.
Summer’s son has gone away,
in the leaves we sway.
Hush–
if they hear,
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.
Persephone knows not winter
Dante knows all sinners
Hush, the lost ones know
the abodes hiding in the snow.
Translation is a traitor
a seductress, defiler,
dépeupler, subdues time.
Love, destruction,
Chacun son dépeupler
deceiver, dissembler,
removal of a size,
humans are naught but dancers,
doomed by light.
What have I lost.
What have I found.
Cowering, sliding, blinded by sight.
Vanquished.
No consciousness, direction of a fire
Ghosts.
Demons.
Paradise aflame.
Futility of hope
we are all arranged.
I could not be unlike
Who I Am.
Change me – I am dead.
History is gone
Future is ashamed,
each is speaking with eyes.
Understand, my love is buried.
Finding I am gone,
always am – bésame.
Hold me close, but far.
Green fields of France,
poppies born from a king –
- From alma. Who never was
ancestor
buried in the fields
dying breath,
No. Not Yet.
Hurry up please
this is the time of our lives.
Ravaging the idea of your lips.
Blood on the ground, I slip.
Eyes open. still. shut.
Passion guards gates of horror.
I lost you before I lost.
I died before my life began.
Slam the doors to my heart
still you crawl in.
don’t fall/don’t lie/don’t search.
Perfection is never attained
Passion is not love –
I love you anyway.
Moving moves me.
Truth.
I have no affairs to put in order
tinsel, it’s on your shoulder
/smile/
Forever I have seen you
waiting for you.
Love never escapes time.
Fears will always come if you tempt them.
She would have eaten it eventually.
We distill
He has a bad rep
No one to defend without a risk
of falling too.
If we are to fall,
Hope
The apple falls in two.
