DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS

Here is an invention, neither made by me nor mine
Abundant colours, flickers enterain the eye -
Vampire's maw-like
Creation's map

In the collage center drawn, barefoot she wades on dusty road,
To where they stand, drowning in thick, dark clouds
Of flame and smoke -
Hell's gateposts

Her eyes - dark, big, and round, like lambs', 
Spoil an otherwise Mongolian face, 
Which really isn't
A fault of Asians

Fifteen alligators, twenty harpies, thirty snakes
And fourty lizards' sullen escort follows slowly, step in step
In strictest order
Along the road

Of horrors of unswerving wrath, the fears 
Of an imminent death known even to the things that pace
Behind her
She's ignorant

Here is were I really ought to say
About higher justice, but to move away
From the real topic
We all find easy

All those standing on this side of the glass
Are observers, nothing more. And with the rest I file on past,
I don't stand out,
I observe..

The girl, barely a child, stepping on the ash and rock,
Towards the flames like a mad shepherd leads 
Her gently stumbling flock,
Towards Hell's gates

Past Heaven's gardens, fields and fruit, streams
Smells, tastes and sights of which I've hardly said a thing,
For she prefers
Hell's darkness