Creating The Damned. (In Memory Of Those Truly Damned) . Poem by Maree Scarlett

You have not truly been to hell.
If you had been, you would not glorify it.
There is no glory in hell.
You write poems glorifying -
hell and how you are a poet, cursed by life
and denounced by your society.
(But you denounce your own self) .

You are damned only in your illusions, your dreams
of possible nightmares keep you drunk, drunk
and existing only in your nurtured denial. You are not yet damned.
Created phantasm cultivates drudgery
in your waking minutes, you seek pseudo madness.

Phantasm catches you in paradox. You seek hell to write about it
and you do not realize, hell cannot be written
when sought in a mind, thinking, hell is a poet's rite.
You kill the muse with your ideals.
You create empty words. Bowing your head
and banging it on a metaphorical wall
you do not yet realize. You write in your blood!
Blood you have not shed. Your blood hell waits for.

Eventually hell will suck your smokescreen into its guts
and feed you into its bowels - crucify and call you to
be the damned, to be your words, the words you write now
but hell will consume you.
Hell will digest all your words and then I hope
your mind is able to speak the story.

You have not truly been to hell.
If you had you would not glorify it.

© Maree Scarlett,2011.