Bio
Robin McNamara is an Irish poet. His debut chapbook Under a Mind’s Staircase was published in June 2021 (Hedgehog Poetry Press UK). His forthcoming full collection, Monochrome Heart is being published in late 2022. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for Apple Picking Season from Under a Mind’s Staircase.
Trigger Warning
I.
Lucifer.
The most beautiful fallen Angel of God
with pristine features and brown eyes, blonde hair. His beauty an obsession
of woman in sin—
Scorned by those righteous men of cloth who lived in their own damnation.
II.
Like Carpeaux’s statue of ‘Ugolino and his Sons’ their secret sins devoured them.
Eating away at their remorse as they feasted upon the children of God. No mirror exists to show the true face of Lucifer.
III.
Lusting,
writhing bodies of the damned are entombed in ice in Inferno’s frozen circle. Never to be freed of their sins on earth/forever, open-mouthed, frozen-screams, hands: outstretched to the heavens, pleading for mercy.
They took the seductive path of lust, greed and pleaded for immortality.
IV.
In the throes of their vanity, Lucifer promised them false salvation in the serenity of hell/where there is no umlilo and brimstone.
An accepted Dantesque portrayal of the terrible beauty of Gabriel— an Angel of many faces.
V.
Charon,
ferried the damned across the frozen seas. Fire-breathing serpents melt the icy waters that cracks upon the force of the bow of naked women.
VI.
Seduced by the sins of the living and seduced by the beautiful face of Him.
For immortal beauty, they now remain frozen for eternity. Never to age and never to feel the touch of love again.
Requiem in Inferno.