This week let’s write a hell poem. Is Hell other people, as Sartre wrote, or is it not being able to get a decent cup of coffee? Let us know in the comments below.
Living Poetry
A group of poets and poetry readers.
Monday Poetry Prompt: Hell
This week let’s write a hell poem. Is Hell other people, as Sartre wrote, or is it not being able to get a decent cup of coffee? Let us know in the comments below.
Living Poetry 
For the very curious…
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 28, 2021, 11:27 AMThe ultimate disappointment: tiny ‘pops’. Silent, cold, numb. What kind of whimper would that be? Now we all may breathe a sigh of relief. The explosive end that seems our due will come at last. Passion at the beginning of time, passion throughout the middle earth ages, and finally, fiery death stars at the end of time. Now that’s a real universe! (Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.)
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Posted by ts19page | October 28, 2021, 1:06 PMAs I said, hell is never what you think it is…
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 28, 2021, 5:48 PMThe Boss Got a PR Guy
Boss, our image needs an update
Puritan fire and brimstone – incomprehensible
What’s a brimstone anyway?
Dante’s seven levels – too complicated
Souls get lost
Our hell will be sleek, spa-like
Full of beautiful dead people
Needing to relearn those kindergarten Bible school lessons
No consequences for cruel and uncivil behavior – only second chances
Just like 44
Ps -Trump may have been 45. Please perform your own substitution
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Posted by Catherine Penafiel | October 29, 2021, 10:08 AMAn encouraging vision of Hell. Thanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 29, 2021, 5:32 PMYeah, el orangino was 45. These are especially good lines:
Our hell will be sleek, spa-like
Full of beautiful dead people
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 30, 2021, 1:04 AMIntense.
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Posted by Gypsie | October 27, 2021, 11:01 AMHell is never what you think it is going to be
Far worse than any imagination can conjure
I wanted to know everything
I wanted to be wise beyond all
So my wish was granted
as angels wept
for the fate I had chosen
Oh, I have seen it all!
I have felt the death of each cell in my body
As blood and oxygen
coagulated in my vessels
I have known the loss of
everyone I have ever known
I was there the last time
my name was ever uttered
I have watched my language
change, fade, and disappear
I saw the last book be destroyed
along with it
the last things I knew before coming “here”
I have seen the passing of
the last person ever
the loss of my species
and then my planet
and star that fed life
extinguished
I have known loneliness
nothingness
true senses
no imagery to ease me
only the truth
reality
I have waited for all things to happen
So that I would know everything
The last wisp of the last proton’s decay
The evaporation of the last black hole
My tutorage of a google
And wisdom too I was given
Too late for any use
Too late to assuage
the tears of the angels
who too have passed beyond
(whatever that is)
in merciful release
Hell is never what think it is going to be
Far worse than any imagination can conjure
That, I can assure you
I know
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 27, 2021, 10:49 AMImmortality is Hell. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 27, 2021, 6:02 PMThank you for the comment, appreciated.
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Posted by ts19page | October 27, 2021, 8:29 AMHell
Hell is a permanent stage of rejection.
Just try to imagine everything you ask for
the answer is always ‘No!’
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 26, 2021, 5:21 AMExcellent little Hell Haiku!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 26, 2021, 6:53 PM😊
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 26, 2021, 9:12 PMhttps://wordpress.com/posts/flickerofthoughts.com
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 26, 2021, 5:21 AMI will make certain there are quantities of chocolate there! 🍫
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Posted by Gypsie | October 25, 2021, 5:38 PMBlissful Hell
Response to Bartholomew Barker’s Monday Poetry Prompt: Hell
No Elysian Fields for me
Nor blissful nights full of
midnight moviethons
and chocolate covered BonBons
While others flit and fly about
donning bright costumes
with gourds full of candies
so spiffy and so dandy
Heaven is not where I will be
a few cold days before November
The dungeon is where I hope to be
blissful hell for you and me
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Posted by Gypsie | October 25, 2021, 11:13 AMVery nice. If there’s chocolate in the dungeon, that’s good enough for me.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 25, 2021, 5:37 PMMaybe room service in the dungeon?
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Posted by ts19page | October 27, 2021, 8:32 AMStrollers in the Parks of Kali
Well, no wonder they run after heartache
as a thirsty man runs after the ice cream truck
not exactly apropos, but wet and cold,
And the children, those who have been let to lead like angels,
are running, and deep inside we are all still children
are we not?
Yelling for I scream, You scream We All Scream for Ice cream.
Group identity is very important, and that is because..
It is all we have.
Everything else is too deep to dig for
Golden shovel or not.
Anyway
gold bends, and would not be so rare
if it were not so scarce.
The earth has only yielded 35 million dollars
worth of gold ever. Other planets in our solar system
don’t have gold, which is one reason we
would not risk being frozen to get there.
We look farther afield and wait for a worm tunnel
which means we are o k with
worminess and that shows.
You can see wormholes everywhere,
when you are nearly ninety
you get vision,
better late than never.
Soon you will be set high on a pyre
and burned to the birds of the hot wind,
you who know how to dodge
the flames and have a taste for satva.
Buddha was better than Kali that’s for sure
though it irks that once again the female
gets the devil’s part. O, yes, and the Mother role-
which is marked by bouquets in May.
Who cares about motherhood anymore
young men are better at nurturing now
they push strollers with one in and one on the chest
to the park, a dog on a leash. The invisible leash
around their necks sings sweet songs of
virtue in their ears, and makes them feel
that being a man is more manly than ever.
Sirens have lost their touch, the lyric has changed-
and eternal niceness still nets corpses.
Wives wear suits, hail cabs
and bring home chopsticks to go with the
ginger flavored stuff in boxes.
They all love themselves very much.
Happy having proved the point
that their war-fighting fathers could not prove-
that to hold a baby, is not just for bad dreams in the night,
that soldiers returned, who got out of bed to soothe,
that one who had met death in the face,
was not enough.
Did never love you enough
impossible to love you enough.
Love me enough.
Enough. Love me More.
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Posted by ts19page | October 25, 2021, 9:22 AMWow. That’s an epic. Thanks for sharing.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 25, 2021, 5:45 PM