A poem about Dante’s Inferno. Who knew?

Dante’s Inferno, the nine circles of hell,
Deep in the center the devil doth dwell.

Allegory of misfortune and sin,
Unpleasant eternity and chagrin.

Three major divisions guarded by beasts,
The deeper one goes, suffering increased.

Each ring, poetic sanctions eternal,
Based upon faults, atmosphere infernal.

Entering limbo with Virgil as guide,
Philosophers and poets who have died.

Moral non-believers who eschew Christ,
Their spiritual souls thus sacrificed.

First through rings of lust, gluttony, and greed,
Lechery, decadence, avarice breed.

The fifth circle, wrath exists all around,
Where acrimony and malice abound.

In the sixth ring, the heretics smolder,
In flaming tombs, never growing older.

Violence where the suicides reside,
Gnarled existence, resurrection denied.

Myriad fraudsters inside the eighth ring,
Ten bolgias of sinners, quite the wellspring.

Removed from light and warmth are the traitors,
Icy hell, treachery perpetrators.

At center, Lucifer struggles in ice,
Betrayal of God, the ultimate price.

Until, finally, the two men escape,
Easter morning on familiar landscape.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” ~ William Shakespeare