196 : 10/23/98 : They May be Damned (Canto 18)

“All right T.S.” I said “I’ve had my fill of this
I’ve gone as far as I want to go
I can’t really see what the point is”

We stood at the top of a sort of coliseum below
us sloped steps and ditches
Filled with another mighty army of woe

“Look at them racing in circles lashed with switches
by the demon hordes
Look a them cursed with boils and itches

Swatting at their wounds scrambling towards
the finish line that will never appear
they’ll strain but never break the cords

That tie them and hold them here
But from what I can see
The difference between this and what’s upstairs is unclear

I’ve been in the pit often enough and I’ll be
in that pit again I am sure
I’ve run the rat race I’ve yearned to be free

I’ve searched for the answers begged for a cure
I’ve been in the shit up to my neck
I’ve fallen for hell’s shiny bobbing lure

So tell my poet when I cash my check
am I gonna end up pushing the stone
Am I supposed to get the fear on this trek

And slobber and wag when he throws me a bone
And pats me on the head like a good dog
Will I be so relieved to be outta the danger zone

That I’ll be happy and content in my slog
Up the mountain of resistance
The endless adversity I flog

My way through without assistance
Man standin’ here I feel right at home
They may be damned but damn if they don’t have persistence”

And Eliot said “kid your mouth is starting to foam
so why don’t you climb down off the horse
This is hell this is not some poem

You have a job and your job is to follow your course
And see what you see there
What you will not accept you cannot take by force

It’s not your place to care
For the final meaning
You won’t find any more of that here than anywhere

You’ll spend a long while figuring out what you’re gleaning
here, so watch where your sentiments are leaning”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

195 : 10/22/98 : Gyre (Canto 17)

876 ?


From the cord from the ball the line
I never bothered to tie
To find my way back to the sunshine

I dropped a line I cast a fly
into the bloody steam of the chasm
where the waters fell into the pit where I

And my guide that stoic phantasm
stood looking down where he told me
to drop the line and there came a spasm

that ripped the other end away from me
and by God up flew this thing
Above us and circled one two three

With a politician’s small and waxy batwings
Settle down beside us
Didn’t say a single thing

And my guide climbed on his back with no fuss
And motioned me to join him
As if motioning me to get on a bus

and sit beside him perched there on the rim
of the seething pit of hell
So I crossed myself and went out on the limb

And the beast launched out for a moment we fell
for a moment my heart popped
then slowly we circled the well

of souls below us where the steam stopped
And he began to circle and gyre
As we slowly slowly dropped

Into the deep fire
Then I saw a multitude
of spirits circling the ledge on the edge of that dire

drop they sat at the margin of the latitude
of hell, “those who took from those in need” the Poet hissed
“Those who stole away the children’s food

Forever pulled down toward deeper hell by what they pissed
away on things that didn’t satisfy them anyway
still their greed pulls them down they wouldn’t be missed

But leave them, onto the next act of the play
time to seek the center of it all
As we come to this black Friday

When the betrayer dropped the dime and made the call
You will see the end of it”
And as the beast banked at the wall

And dropped us at the edge of a stepped pit
turned and flew away and I said “hey man I smell shit”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

194 : 10/21/98 : Fishing (Canto 16)

We crossed the way across the path
In that land of fiery downpour
That outpouring of wrath

I said “all this I’ve seen and more
to come I don’t know what to make
of it what I’ve seen on this desolate shore

It’s just a little bit too much to take
I’ve seen friends here men I admire
Is it justice for these few to bake

while warlike scoundrels dodge the fire
was the world not better for their passing
when will there be the reckoning

That answers the questions I’m asking
Can you explain this poet
What is the message I’m meant to be grasping”

“We don’t know about reckoning, the hour we don’t know it
We don’t ask about the way things run
I got nothin’ I didn’t go get

for myself I reap what I sowed under the sun
And I ain’t just dishing
This up to put you off my son

We will yet learn what you are wishing
Ponder the question while we do a little fishing

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

193 : 10/20/98 : Follow Your Light (Canto 15)

871 ?



The banks of the cooling stream
rose up to a twisting road
That we followed protected by the stream

That rose from the fire that fell and flowed
through that deserted land
Running and collecting, the whole country glowed

“With the fiery issue of the fiery hand
Some are persecuted”
My guide said squinting out over the burning sand

“A truth that cannot be refuted”
A voice said to my left
I looked down and saw a face burned and sooted

Gazing cooly up at me, said in a voice bereft
“Didn’t expect to see you down here kid,
And as I paused at a place where the stream cleft

Into two paths he said “for the things I did
I am not allowed to pause or rest
Lest the throw me in the pot and drop the lid

So walk along I’ll do my best
to follow you and hear of your strange journey
it seems you are given a strange test

usually the turnkey
turns back the under dead
And never to return we

lost souls stay where the fire rains down on your head
so what brings you here man
what do you think of what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard said”

I said “old teacher this is not my plan
and I don’t really know why I’m down here
And looking back over the course I ran

I don’t see much object that’s clear
to me of what the hell
Exactly sort of moral is supposed to appear

What I’m seeing is ringing every bell
I know I still am far astray
Does it all lead back to where I fell”

He said “you got no choice but to take the way
you’re led to by the light
Follow your light and as a new day

Dawns you will be rewarded with a sight
That’s all I know and I know I’m right”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

192 : 10/19/98 : Rain of Fire (Canto 14)

Pausing only to gather a few leaves for souvenirs
We continued to where the wood thinned then stopped
And came upon a sterile plain, the fire sears

Endlessly it seems it dropped
away from the wood’s edge
And scattered about cursed souls rolled and flopped

From the rain of fire that covered all that ledge
falling eternally down
A very symbol of God’s pledge

of vengeance on a very evil town
And the townfulls of them writhed and ran
Except for one who wore an iron crown

And I said “that one’s no ordinary man”
And he said “you got that one right
I’m not one any measly fire storm can

cause to foam and twist and bite
I’m dead and I’ll not give the satisfaction
of suffering under His sight”

And T.S. Eliot, noting my reaction
said “here’s one to notice my son
Mr. Quintessential man of action

will not wriggle even one
toe, and all for purest spite of God
His answer gives the reason

For the question that seems to make a fraud
of all the so called heavenly grace
Yes the question of the unsparing rod

of Almighty retribution in this place
The fire is an illusion
The suffering the eternal trace

of evil that remains, of pestilent confusion
There it is so it is anyway
Don’t be so quick to draw conclusions

For we must go further in today
And so we pass the fire and continue
Along this narrow way”

A rivulet of blood from the river ran through
the circles, through forest and over plain
And along a burning slope cut a view

to another lower tier, the vein
of misery formed a fused bank
where the fire was cooled and the pain

of traveling was curbed upon that narrow plank
That led to a new place of regretting
And the poet said “you might do well to thank

The Power that is for the course we are setting
This stream that leads so far away to the waves of forgetting”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

191 : 10/18/98 : Walk in the Wood (Canto 13)

865 ?


And when on the other bank we stood
I said “this seems out of place
This peaceful quiet walk in the wood”

He said “there is a quiet place in hell a space
Where a silent and lonely deed is done
by those who once in silence and loneliness finished the race

That all we misbegotten creatures run
Each day fighting the way we are
We lose that race one day all every one

You need not walk very far
to understand what goes on here
Listen to the wind in the branches of this fine exemplar”

It said “son you’re gonna shed many a tear
Over so much that is not all it may seem
All pass through fire all face the end in fear

This is a dream a child’s dream
Floating, free high above
The expectations far beyond evil’s evil gleam

Beyond disappointment and loss of love
Beyond all fear of failing
Speak to rain and the mourning dove

And the soft wind sailing
It speaks on us we speak on it
Hear our greeting hear the distant hailing

Of the quiet wood beyond the river before the pit
the quiet shades who grow so slow
we are protected like all one day a new flesh to inherit”

And I said aside poet “is this where all must go
Who by their own hand lose the bitter fight”
He said “you must ask what you would know”

I said to the trees “are you happy in this endless twilight
Between forever and the end
Do you regret leaving the light

Where the rest of us seem compelled to spend
What little time we’re gifted with
What is the message you would send

How should I relate this myth?
of your final resting
What is the state of your sap and pith”

And a voice came back on the wind and said “cease your testing
Ethics and reality don’t always mix
A path lies open before all who go on questing

A wood waits for all the lunatics
the lonely and determined few
Who finally broke what er couldn’t fix

consider what you yourself might do
Walk on you need not remember us above: we will not remember you”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

190 : 10/17/98 : The River of Blood (Canto 12)

We came down the shattered stone to the requisite river of blood
“Here we cross the border into true torment
Here at the reservoir where flows all of the violent flood

The spring that is open,” the poet said “by those sent
Here to boil eternally in every drop that’s shed
By their victims, by the innocent”

Some to their ankles some in over their heads
Some floating down the stream
The river of blood in its bloody riverbed

And seeing I winced at the stench of the carnal stream
My guide said “mark well and remember
That horrifying as the spectacle may seem

It is only the last eternal blood red ember
of the violent fantasies of violent hearts
A sinister club of sinister men and none is here who’s not a member

In death in life we play our chosen parts
Some choose the sharp end of the sliver
And those who carry on the violent arts,”

He said as we crossed a shallow in the river,
“Ah well what a man ties up fate shall deliver.”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

189 : 10/16/98 : Malice (Canto 11)

We had passed the plain of tombs
Though not another shade had risen to speak
In that roaring quiet place where darkness looms

And came to the edge of a jagged peak
That collapsed into the deep valley of the next hell
I started forward but was pressed back by a sulfurous reek

That rose up an unholy smell
for certain and T.S. drew his cloak across his face
And said “if we linger a short time it would be well

Until we grow accustomed to the stench of this place
And as we linger listen to a sketch of what’s ahead
3 circles we have yet to pace

Malice is the theme that’s read
in the pages of the journey we take
through this folio of the dead

First those who chose to break
the covenant that human blood should not spill
Another's or their own, all who choose the bloody thirst to slake

And then those who chose not only to kill
But to take arms against the common good
And strive against the higher will

More mockers will you find there than even you would
think could be possible at all
More two time losers who blundered to death through the dark wood

And down from there in the final hall
before the darkest inmost lair
There pinned to the fiery wall

The treacherous are pinioned there
All those who violated countrymen or kin
They breathe the inmost foulest air

And from there we’ll proceed to the infamous sanctum within
and complete this odyssey we have begun
But many moments we’ll linger yet in the outer din

I said “man I think I have some serious issue with the pay this place is run”
He said “did I forget to mention you’re in hell son?”

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

188 : 10/15/98 : What Would You Have Done (Canto 10)

853 ?


When we passed through the iron door
we came into a desolate plain
Which was silent save for a far off roar

of the rivers of fire in the valley of pain
below our feet in deeper hell
scattered around the cracked ground that knew no rain

Iron coffins open scattered as if where they fell
From a giant’s hand cast
And all was silent cast in some unnatural spell

These shades of days not so long past
and those of ages eons dead and gone
to these crypts they are held fast

Until Gabriel’s trumpet shouts the Judgment song
And the spirit takes on its second skin
And all are separated right from wrong

“Can I speak to those shades within?”
I asked with trembling and fear
“Speak and observe their reply and meditate upon their sin

of insistence that our final end is here
in this mortal coil
the mystery of sheer

disbelief in a higher order than the soil
that ever claims our flesh
a higher work than mortal toil

And do not seek their spirits to refresh
In the solace of belief
Here are the places they enmesh

their spirits waiting for some thief
to finally erase their souls
But they receive not that relief

And one then rose from his hole
And said “American, down from the heartland
No doubt a countryman welcome to the country of the death toll

What goes on down in the nation of prosperity and
opportunity,” I said “you and your like
still running the show still on the grandstand

But still the people still eroding the dike”
Another spirit spoke then
“Stranger you’re down a long strange way off the mortal pike

Can this journey now be taken by mortal men?
And if you then why not my son?
Why does he not seek his father in this bitter den?”

“Perhaps he did not seek as one
like me who followed my path however bitter
I only finish what I have begun”

“Is his seeking done then,” he cried out, “is my son consumed on his litter?”
And he fell back into his box
“Even so,” said the first shade “clearly no quitter”

But I see a darker and more devious fox
creeping up on your society
I see famine pestilence and pox

And even your quaint piety
will not buy you out of hell on earth
And chaos of a thousand sorts, fine variety

But you will rise up in the cosmic rebirth
You will rise in your tiny boat
When you learn the word of worth

What you value where you truly hang your coat”
“Old man,” I said “what’s the deal here
Can you not speak of the present does it stick in your throat?”

“Young one to us only prophecies appear
We cannot see the past or present
And when the timeless comes we shall be mere

Incidents of dreams that came and went
now quickly for a time I fade
Listen to me remember she who sent

You out of this dark hole from your sunny glade
Look deeper past this ring of fire
Look past this twisted path you’ve made

At the center you will see the script entire
A truth you must take with you past the Wire.

This song is part of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here