For the Obstinate
It was Hell. It displayed itself, a bad time
in full throe. Right where they always said
it was, down below. A deathless music
of shrieking strings, of poison yellow
clarinets. Here, the unspeakable mansions
were. Here, the stricken souls must slide,
clear out of bed, sluiced out of skin to rain
through floorboards, to rain like
an untended bath rains into the basement.
They must be the defacement they have made.
The simmering acres swallow them.
Now, they never tire, fitted
in their spiritual attire: couches lit on fire,
forever unconsumed—the rhetoric of a liar
in every flare & hiss. How they go on! They
shout, shout, for the argument to continue,
without doubt that it shall continue, as it shall.
Continue. Continue. They’ll allow nothing.
They’ll see it through, as they did on earth.
They’ll not concede. They insist. Like this,
like this.
