The Harrowing of Hell, from a fourteenth century manuscript, Anonymous

The Harrowing of Hell, from a fourteenth century manuscript, Anonymous

Upon a muddied road
long lost to the noise
and bustle of everyday
inanity I came upon
a wound in the land

from the bottom
of the ever deepening pit
he winks his brightest blue eye at me:
‘nothing in the wide world,
of which you seem so attached,
has any real existence’

ontological jokes
for the squeamish

‘I’m a figment –
pigment stain
of your wall-eyed,
lolling fantasies’
dancing as he heckles
my raised hackles

‘ogling my impish
grin gets you nothing
but sin,’ whispers
‘it’s meaningless din,
for all is naught’

with nihilistic glee the
trickster jests his own
dark thoughts
rhyme, don’t rhyme
on moral principle –

even the damned
need amusement

he laughs aloud
‘what gods are left
to damn me?’

there is no purpose
in the gilding
of my golden cage
and my resentment
may be stonily wrought

I’d be devastated
but remember
his existence is
nonexistent, another
prank on my sincerity
and so merrily continue
my journey unencumbered

Written in response to Claudia’s prompt at dVerse Poets Pub to write a poem where character from a book intrudes. My character is Woland from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The title is the beginning of a poem from Eunoia by the experimental poet, Christian Bök.