A Sin for Dante's Inferno

Among those who practice Black Magic, The Phenomenologists

Amidst a dying forest we came upon a workshop

In the center was a metal table covered with tools

And just in reach of all, a hacked stump of wood lay atop.

Men crowded round, and occasionally would drop a knife

Or hammer to grab at their hair-- or seizing on the brink

Of discovery they froze, slavering to taste of life.

They moved together, waves of anxiety rolling through

Like an ocean eternally crashing against the shore

Each man working till the appeasing day might rise anew.

But that honey colored sun, they were never blessed to see.

One man broke away from the group and wandered towards us,

He seemed to be trying to tear the air from his body.

He mumbled “being-towards-life… the meaning of not-being”

His face lit and he shouted, “That being for whom being

Is no longer a concern for it.” Then broke off mumbling,

“No, that is present-at-hand, but, it is, it must be so.”

At that, this great thinker I recognized as Heidegger

He noticed the sign in my face and let his story go.

“You must be curious to know: I lived to grasp of death.

I found and greedily abused, the bliss of non-existence

Now I yearn only for what I missed in that sweet life’s breath

Knowing not my soul would endure thereafter, I lit upon anxiety,

And the emptiness that freed me to choose

A meaning of my design. God was a concept so petty.

We learned to resist the one and the calm of his embrace

And in its stead sought the thrill of self-slaved potential

It was a true Pyrrhic victory, how my heart would race,

 When it heard the cries of my tortured soul.” With that he turned,

Though drawn to work by sudden inspiration. I wondered

At this and questioned my master, this answer he returned:

“They long to feel of peace, the truth of life they shunned as such.

But their work they never can complete, for all equipment

Breaks to unleash that anxiety cursed to follow their touch.

As they taught ‘being-in-the-world,’ here their souls enact

To suffer what they thought, and the air sticks to their bodies

As though there was no freedom of the spirit from the fact.”

It sometimes seems that they are freed, swimming in their strife, then

A thickened cry rises, as the air turns like an angry sea

And they begin to suffocate from that which gave them life.

“Each man believes what he seeks is real, further, better

Than the others, yet sees their tasks as futile as they truly are.”

“Is that not a consolation?” I put to my master.

“Not at all,” he replied, “If they knew their shared state,

Either vain or fruitful, they might find comfort in common good

Rather than the silent cage of loneliness breeding hate.”