Hell's Next Door

Who says that I should read Dante To summon up visions of Hell? The charnel houses of the Holocaust Are but distant memories of a race Pinning their memories on a distant Star! I need not go to an abattoir To get a stink of Death, Or to the city morgue To see mangled corpses of men! Do I have to envision Hades As described by Virgil (or Homer?) Does the gore and gristle of a Gothic Compare with what’s next door? Charon waits on my doorstep The Grim Reaper is too busy to come. You need not be dead to take passage On Thanatos’ ferry, for sure! The winding streets of my world Are tributaries to the Stygian river – Lost souls abound in the bye-lanes Longing for a Paradise called Death!