Dante and Virgil Talk Along The Speculated «River» Lethe (Canto 1 : 2)
D:
“Heart sanctified by walk in Death’s dark halls.
Souls morter’d and brick-ed reach towards the sky,
Or cross the way by holler through the walls:
‘Remember me, what life has rent awry!’
Now closed my ears to onanism’s shouts,
And beeping horns who wish to have their way,
And tweakers who wish me to be without
My head, so with my torso they could lay.
They chose to travel here! They chose to be
That what the Lord despise. They chose to want
their lives spent in materiality;
They willed their hearts to be rolled in a blunt
And smoked in Central Park right by The Rat:
The Battery lives but The Bronx is splat!”
V:
“All right, friend, we’re both poets here——
verse begins to wane as tires the composer.
Let us please, for once, speak plainly and frankly.
Before my query, a justification,
Or,
APOLOGY:
What we have seen in the last twenty four hours——
I can tell——
Has iced your soul.
Twenty three ago, you fainted.
Now, you tread the faces of the suffering
And deceive them with your words.
Your God comissioned himself a work
Out of despicable Florence
and the wood nearby——
Lest you forget what brought you thence in the first order.
Where you not there, in the saddle, at Compaldino?
Did you truly break the font in San Giovanni?
(You’re about one thousand years too late on that one)…
But, friend,
I love you.
That’s why I carried you.
And,
Knowing all this about you,
Let’s put it all aside.
And,
Please forgive my cynicality.
And,
I promise to answer to you how so many souls could be condemned for revolt against the pagan Jupiter
If,
You tell me but this:
Who is this woman who called on me,
And why does she find such favor?”
D:
“She was the fire on my heart;
She was the center of my universe.
I did meet her, when I was very young——and several hours was all it took
To bring me before those beasts and through this forsaken chasm this day.
It pains me to relinquish,
Dear Virgil,
That there are no troubadours:
You, glorious poet, were of a time when men more closely wore themselves on sleeves.
Could you recall Symposium?
(I never read it).
Yes, there once was a Beatrice,
There once will be an Elizabeth——
But,
Once Shee, Shee is Deade——
Thereafter always Benedict,
Always Elijah——
And thank your beastly Jove for the verse you knew ‘twould blossom.”