Selected Cantos of the Inferno
Karen Pinkus
A good bit more than halfway through my life I stood
On a precipice looking down with dread
When came my guide, with wiry hair, the very sage Ms. Atwood.
“I’ll take you ‘round to see how certain souls are fairing
In hopes to cheer you up a bit,” she offered.
This, plus Xanax and some wine will make a pleasant pairing.
******
We came upon a meadow that seemed verdant from afar.
On close inspection, drought-fueled wildfires simmered
And yet, small dogs were frolicking among the ashy chars.
“Behold the plain of virtuous re-pugs,” Margaret indicated.
“Being of that sort, they will forever chase their croppéd tails
But will not suffer the tortures of others much worse fated.”
“And who’s that silver-coated fox who yaps intrepidly?” I wonder.
“That’s Liz Cheney. She sniffs and seeks her dad but finds him not
For he resides where it is much, much more hot.”
*****
Next, we sailed upon a sea of men forever treading water.
Bezos and Sir Keir I recognized among the many bobbing heads.
“They did what they had to,” said my guide, “to find themselves safe harbor.”
They can’t be blamed, I thought. And yet they might have spoken up
instead of normalizing the approaching storm
or diplomatic niceties continuing to perform.
On the shore were others who, fearing they’d be uninvited to the party
made pilgrimage to Sea-on-Lake and now are forced to dance without a spine–
a monstruous ballet by some demonic Balanchine.
Then we descended to a circle filled with men and women doomed
to gaseous blustery emissions from both ends
Hypocrites–the pose of twisted pretzels they assumed.
My guide suggested I might speak to anyone I’d pick.
A toothy smile popped right up: “Hiya! I’m Haley, Nick.
Please. Bend me as you wish,” came from one or the other orifice.
“And what’s that head contorted tight within a closet?”
“That’s Lady Lindsay G, who has a place reserved forever more.
Secret lover of boyish pages, he railed at “light shoes” on the senate floor.
*****
Descending, we approached one strung by hand and feet
To what might seem a cross but was in fact an X
Then suddenly came a driverless car bearing a T, to break his neck.
“Decipher, please, these cabalistic forms,” I begged my guide.
“That’s Mr. Musk,” she said. “And having squandered billions for his pride
he’ll spend the rest of days in agony with bloody gashes on his side.”
And all around a hideous cabinet of curiosities:
There’s Marco, Oz and Putin’s Tulsi
All sentenced to unending bending of the knees.
And then—behold! –a bloated baby with red MAGA hat
and skin so thin it appeared like saran wrap.
His crimes so many, he’s bound forever to his sweaty avocat.
The molten heat caused dye to fall into eyes of Rudy G.
He’d stay forever blinded as he clung on in desperation
covering his orange life raft with his vile perspiration.
I naturally I supposed we’d reached rock bottom, and yet
My guide elucidated: “These two are not as far down as you’d expect,
Given their rather low intellect.”
“The hottest places are still to come,” she pointed.
“Reserved for those entrusted with the public good
Who acted as they pleased, as tyrants self-anointed.”
Swimming in a sea of shit, parasites came up for breaths of air.
First gestated in the skull of one called RFK
They seemed to grow more numerous each minute of each day.
“That slimy worm who dons a robe is Justice Thomas,” my guide spoke.
“a sycophant in life, in death reduced perpetually
to choke on a can of pubic hair-infested Coke.”
“And those mucked up white-shoed feet, to whom do they belong?”
“Another justice, Sam Alito, destined to hang upside down
Like the flag he claimed his wife had flown.”
And farther still two Steves were heard in pain to howl:
One, a Miller grew a new foreskin every day
Only to have a fiendish mohel cut it repeatedly away.
The other, Bannon, writhed and bellowed,
As he conjured up conspiracies and lies
consuming his own flesh along with larval flies.
*****
After this, I need a real vacation and may seek refuge in another nation.
“Might I inquire, my kind guide, about residency in your Canadia?”
“It’s no Paradiso,” said she. “At best a purgatory ‘til the end of this administration.”
Karen Pinkus is a writer and professor emerita of Italian and Comparative Literature. She lives in New York City.
