free verse poem over Dante's "Inferno" |
The tunnel was long and dark You could hear the screams We made wet footprints From walking through the streams Laura told me that this Hell Was for the Overachievers She told me that this Was the circle for her We walked along and noticed Souls trapped in desks They had pencils glued to their hands And were constantly writing A teacher was at the front It was Mr. Smith The Freshman Humanities teacher And he had a wicked grin His hair was wild His clothes were ripped He kept cackling and snapping And shouting, YAH! YAH!" Laura told me to stay calm So I took a breath Then Smith's evil penetrating eyes Looked upon me and shouted "Another one you've brought me!" Laura took a pencil and threw it at him Smith cursed under his breath Laura continued to lead me on through this horrible place And then we came across some familiar faces My sister, Stephanie, was in a desk Her hands were blistered from writing Her paper had a giant red "F" on it And her eyes were swollen from crying I went down the row There was Bianca, one of my closet friends She had a zero on her assignment She wasn't crying, but she was writing vigorously Smith started to go on his rounds He had a giant stamp with a red "F" on it We went up to everyone and stamped their paper Bianca all of a sudden jumped up and started yelling at Smith He quickly took a whip and whipped the chalkboard Which gave her another checkmark Laura told me that each checkmark Symbolized another century of Hell that they had to serve If you had no checkmarks You would be out of Hell Unless of course You had another debt to serve in another part of Hell Smith saw a soul with hope in its eyes He whipped the chalkboard Laura told me that Smith Wouldn't allow any hope in his classroom of Hell Just as we left we heard a screech I looked at Laura in terror She told me one of the souls had finished their sentence I asked her why she was screeching She said,"After the soul has pain its debt, it is sliced in half; One half to go to heaven, One half to go to Hell We went through another dark tunnel And climbed a white ladder And I was raised up by a light And saw my life flash before me I didn't know where I was headed So I closed my eyes and hoped for the best I waited for eternity, plus a century more And stayed with Evan, the virgin whore. |