Inferno

 
“lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate”
 
Dante Alighieri, Inferno
 

 
Come have done with sanities
those antique inanities
those pettifogging vanities
that marked our antic lot
 
Behold a Brash New Age
profane is all the rage
all hail the iron cage
wherein we rail and rot
 
A touch of sleaze is fine
a tad of slime divine
bowed to that higher sign
of grime grease and grot
 
All troth be scoffed away
all gods bare feet of clay
all norms perforce give way
to this saturnalian plot
 
There’s none to question why
so (cha)grin and Live the Lie
stifling the wordless cry
watching the life-spirit clot
 
No hanker left for peace
craving luxury and ease
ever ready to appease
this realm of shell and shot
 
Can be no turning back
for the courage that we lack
sliding to ruin and rack
as a world goes straight to pot
 
So yes have done with sanities
those ludicrous inanities
revel in vile profanities
where spirit is sold and bought
 
No scope for hoary charities
rarer than the rareties
good evil both neutered parities
all idylls amount to naught
 
Did It fall upon us unaware?
or did we see and did not care?
or did we care but did not dare
to stanch what we had wrought?
 
Or was it some other-worldly plot?
 
© R.Kanth 2022

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, and Expiations