In The Tenth Bolgia

I

Time, the Fairest Judge

They called William Harvey mad

for saying the heart was no furnace

where blood vanished into flesh,

but a pump driving one crimson river

through an unending circle.

The learned physicians shook their heads,

clinging to yellowed pages,

while every heartbeat proved him right.

They called Galileo reckless

for raising a telescope to the stars.

He found wandering moons,

the blemishes upon the Sun,

and a world that was not the motionless

center of creation.

His truth was summoned to trial,

yet the planets kept their course.

How often wisdom arrives

wearing the mask of folly.

The crowd crowns certainty,

while truth walks alone,

bearing no scepter but evidence.

History remembers many first

dismissed as mad,

only because they saw farther

than their age could bear.

I am Harvey, I am Galileo.

The Earth kept turning.

The blood kept circling.

Time is the fairest judge

II

Giovanni Stradano

To touch her cotton candy skin,

to embrace her marshmallow body,

to kiss the honey lips of a maiden

nothing is sweeter than a woman's love.

It is indeed sweeter to be a man.

As the poet John Ross Hart said,

"Only a woman can encourage my erection."

To call me gay is to call Panfilo gay.

Aldo, Alan, Anameda,

Donny, Gideon, Jacob, Nuria,

all of your likes are Imees;

they are Sinons; they are the falsifiers.

You are in the tenth bolgia;

don't just look at the monochromatic

sepia palette, pale cream, and golden yellow;

be sure to see the deep amber,

the bold, brownish-ochre tones,

bound in background and contours.

III

Spouses Macasaet v. Spouses Macasaet

They entered not by mere tolerance alone;

Their parents welcomed them, made them known.

With open hearts they gave consent to stay,

An unspoken covenant showed the way.

In honest faith the children built their home;

Parents watched each wall, roof arise from loam.

With knowledge given and with full consent,

The law declares their labor rightly meant.

No owner may claim another's work for gain;

Justice forbids such profit born of pain.

Before the land returns to those who own,

The builder's rightful value must be shown.

Repay the worth of every beam and wall,

Or heed what Article 448 shall call.

The law will weigh each fact with even hand,

And render judgment suited to the land.

IV

The Tongue That Lies

Speak the truth of that night.

Tell them you gave your consent,

that you stood with us when

our house was raised on a coconut farm.

Do not erase your own footsteps.

That house is ours. That house is mine.

Tell them how, before sunrise,

you shouted at a dog outside our house,

while the children still slept,

your voice breaking the peace of the morning.

Tell them of the night you came to my door,

a sundang in your hand,

your eyes bright with rage,

your silence promising blood,

your anger seeking my life.

Do not call a sane man mad.

Do not brand a straight man gay.

False words wound long after they are spoken,

every slander leaves its own stain upon the tongue.

So lie no longer, Aldo Boguida.

For every lying word leads you nearer to Sinon,

blazing with a boundless,

burning fever in the Tenth Bolgia of Malebolge.

V

Birdsong Against Falsehood

Don't lie, Gideon Alga Hago.

Tell them of the day

you joined the hazing

of a would-be neophyte,

when the crack of the paddle

echoed across the field

until startled birds

burst from the trees.

Don't lie, Gideon Alga Hago.

Tell them of the night

you raised a sharpened knife

against your wife,

because she asked of you

what you no longer wished to give.

The shouting filled the darkness,

and even the birds

fell silent.

Don't lie, Gideon Alga Hago.

Tell them of the hour

you confessed your own ignorance,

that you could no longer

pass an examination,

that you called yourself a fool.

Even the birds heard your words,

and carried them away in song.

So lie no longer, Gideon Alga Hago.

For every falsehood freely flung

leads you nearer to Sinon and Aldo Boguida,

blazing with a boundless, blistering fever

in the Tenth Bolgia of Malebolge.

VI

Dante and Virgil in Hell by Bouguereau

Gianni Schicchi impersonated

a wealthy dead man to forge a new will

and steal an inheritance for himself,

biting into the necks of other souls.

Oscar Don Abode is Gianni Schicchi,

who impersonates Aldo Boguida

and takes the exam in his place,

whose mind is an empty gallon of tuba,

hollow pockets on his way to a cockfight.

Now his body bends in a twisted tangle,

tightly gripping his gasping opponent

as teeth tear into his throat

in a frenzied fury of feral, ferocious violence.

VII

Medieval Manuscript Illustration

Arthur dons a pale, primrose robe

over a deep blue tunic.

A golden cloak rests upon his shoulders,

and a soft, pointed cap crowns his head.

His right hand is raised in a gesture of inquiry.

Eliot, a venerable man

with graying hair and a bristling beard,

wears a blue robe beneath a burnished mantle

whose broad folds sweep the ground.

A pointed cap covers his head.

His right hand is extended

toward the sinners in a teaching gesture.

To their right stand three naked souls,

their bodies emaciated and diseased.

Beside bloated Master Adam stands Sinon,

the sly Greek schemer who swayed the Trojans

to shelter the Horse within the Troy walls.

Sinon stands skeletal and sick,

bearing the burning burden

of an unending disease.