Hell
by
Craig Kirchner
“And shall cast
them into a furnace of fire:
there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth.”
Matthew 13:42
God is credited
with creating Hell,
for the Devil and
other fallen angels,
as a place of
everlasting fire.
California seems
particularly plagued,
but there was a
Siberian fire that
destroyed 55
million acres of forest.
In 2019 Australia
recorded its hottest
and driest year.
In 2020 a bushfire took out
42 million acres
and killed 61,000 koalas.
Hell is described
as a place of
intense suffering
and despair,
which Siberia can
attest to,
and which all
mankind could experience,
as devastating
fires become more severe,
frequent and
widespread.
The planet like
Australia
keeps getting
hotter.
Ironically those
who clutch the flag,
and carry a Bible
and a cross,
seem to be some of
the biggest deniers,
that man is
creating his own Hell.
Matthew, Mark, and
Revelations
warn that through
sin and lying,
man can find his
way to his own Hell.
Not below or
under, here on the surface,
amidst whole new
levels of manifest lying,
which will
continue to burn.
There is no
metaphor or simile for
a planet consumed
in rising oceans,
manifest flame,
and dead koalas.
Craig Kirchner
thinks of poetry as hobo art, loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the
paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book
of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus he was
recently published in Decadent Review, Last
Leaves, Literary Heist, Ariel Chart, Cape Magazine, Flora Fiction,
Young Ravens, Chiron Review, Yellow Mama, Valiant Scribe and several
dozen other journals.
