Bound on a voyage Úncouth & Obscure,
Far on excursion toward the gates of hell—²
We’ll Break in the doors of hell—and Smash the bolts!³
We stir up hell to heave its lowest Dreg-Fiends
Uppermost in fiery swirls of slime—⁴
Each Lost Soul is a hell unto itself.⁵
The Curse of hell frae me sall ye bear.⁶
A thick strip of flesh pulls away to reveal
An unexpected Passage to hell in our heart—⁷
Hell: the Shadow from a soul on fire.⁸
Hell is made of Fallen Suns:
Each day another sun goes under the earth—⁹
Go to hell, but keep moving once there—
Come out the Other Side …¹⁰
¹ Emily Dickinson, Remorse is Memory Awake
² John Milton, Paradise Lost
³ The Epic of Gilgamesh tr. N.K. Sandars
⁴ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
⁵ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
⁶ Anonymous, Clerk Saunders
⁷ Mary Gaitskill, Folk Song
⁸ Omar Khayyám tr. Edward Fitzgerald, Rubáiyát
⁹ Philip Whalen, What Finally Happened to the King
¹⁰ Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost