Hell (2000) Poem by David Levitas

In hell we are, the judgement has been made,
Ourselvespropelling our lives to the grave,
Where we face our shadows, already laid
With the dust of centuries waste, the rave
Of power, lust, consuming passions, paid
With the good resisted, the corpse of Love,
Pity spurned, and innocence, the mocking
Tale of how truth and justice killed the dove.

The Fall, is but a fable of our death,
Which we enact in scripture by and by,
The doom we ineluctably are left
When we play out the social roles, that high
Or low, try to make right, of what is reft;
And leave us but a sensate corpse, bereaved
In this and any other world, of hope,
Of what once as children, we once believed.

Around us we see a shattered Nature,
Broken by the tools of man's desiring,
Kicked, battered, strung up, exhumed in stature,
The fool of a computerized wiring;
Its ashes recycled for the rapture of the second class; not saved,
Still touched with the envy of savage rage,
But far freer of sin, because enslaved.