Spoiler
Adaptation subject: Dante's Inferno. (This seems to have the whole text: http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/comedy/)
Caffè
Dolorous tendrils of grey claw for pity
against the evening's cool sarcophagus
urging me on.
It helps to teeter on the weighted seat's edge,
drinking the brew to keep my words steady
going down.
I blow waves into the murky lake,
and my girding face thrashes, folding in
on itself.
The ripples calm, the souls refill
the vacuum and the heat quenches
no thirst.
The room's overlapping shadows,
armatures of all I see, lift the window
into sight.
A grainy square containing the multitudes
of poor always with us, yawning they wave
to me.
The televised shock and awe gurgles
under crunchy static and commercials
urging me on.
Distant buttons mute the masses for the time
being and silence delves me into the
sheer mirror.
Three heads spawn from splinters
in my consuming reflection of
silver betrayal.
Thrilled by my own illness I swallow
my way to the ceramic bottom and
upturn it.
Breath held firm, but nothing has
nowhere to go, clings to self, tries
to survive.
The stained filter holds muddy beans,
ground into dirt, hiding their identity,
roasted whole.
Stomach trembles and gravity
rejects a teeming, liquid miasma,
urging me on.
The white white white hard seat
of perfect plastic cradles me on
my knees.
Vile slush ejects from my naked lips
and whirls as it flushes to the hungry
empty bottom.
My bare head hangs over the depths,
and I shut my eyes to the peril of
saturated heights.
Rung by rung I dash down the old ladder
of faith shaking the foundations that might
go out.
Smoldering ash quickens my step,
slithering char chases my toes, a
searing forge.
The shrill beep that signals a fresh pot
spits me from my head into the stark air,
urging me on.
I straddle the stale cushion and sugar
the bitter drudge, no other way to
satiate myself.
