circles of hell and evil pockets

You would sit amid

the nine circles of hell.

I would toss you into the second circle,

the circle of lust,

left alone to those violent winds,

highly deserving of that dry punishment

for your aimlessness.

I would curse you to the eighth circle,

the circle of fraud,

left alone to Geryon, an image of deception,

your own damn reflection
exposed in those Evil Pockets.

the second circle: lust

the eighth circle: fraud

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Inferno Canto XVII:1-30 The poets approach Geryon

      ‘See the savage beast, with the pointed tail, that crosses mountains, and pierces walls and armour: see him, who pollutes the whole world.’ So my guide began to speak to me, and beckoned to him to land near the end of our rocky path, and that vile image of Fraud came on, and grounded his head and chest, but did not lift his tail onto the cliff.

      His face was the face of an honest man, it had so benign an outward aspect: all the rest was a serpent’s body. Both arms were covered with hair to the armpits; the back and chest and both flanks were adorned with knots and circles. Tartars or Turks never made cloths with more colour, background and embroidery: nor did Arachne spread such webs on her loom. As the boats rest on the shore, part in water and part on land, and as the beaver, among the guzzling Germans, readies himself for a fight, so that worst of savage creatures lay on the cliff that surrounds the great sand with stone.

      The whole of his tail glanced into space, twisting the venomous fork upwards, that armed the tip, like a scorpion. My guide said: ‘Now we must direct our path, somewhat, towards the malevolent beast that rests there.’

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Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

Saint Augustine

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees.

Marcel Proust

Salvador Dali "The Back of Geryon"