From an old notebook: A Poem by Steve Kowit

This is one of my favorite poems. I transcribed it from a tape of KPFK's poetry show some time in the 1980s. I am sure the line breaks and punctuation are messed up.

Hell

by Steve Kowit

I died and went to hell,
and it was nothing like L.A.
The air, all shimmering and blue
No windows busted,
gutted walkups, muggings, rapes.
No drooling hoodlums hulking in the doorway.
Hell isn't anything like Ethiopia
or Bangladesh or Bogota.
Beggars are unheard of
No one's starving.
Nobody lies moaning in the streets.
Nor is it Dachau with its ovens,
Troy in flames,
Some slaughterhouse where squealing
animals hang upside down are bled and skinned.
No plague-infested Avignon or post-annihilation Hiroshima.
Quite the contrary.

In hell,
everybody's health is fine forever
and the weather is superb--eternal spring.
The countryside--all wildflowers
and the cities hum with commerce.
Cargo ships bring all the latest in:
appliances, home entertainment, foreign culture, silks.
Folks fall in love, have children.
There is sex and romance for the asking--
in a word, the place is perfect.

Only, unlike heaven,
where when it rains, people are content
to let it rain,
in hell, they live as we do, endlessly complaining.
Nothing as it is is ever right.
The Astroturf a nuisance,
the neighbor's kids too noisy.
Traffic--nothing but a headache.
If the patio were just a little larger
or if the sun-roof on the Winnebago worked,
if only we had darker eyes
or softer skin or longer legs,
lived elsewhere, plied a different trade,
were slender, sexy, wealthy, younger, famous,
loved, athletic . . .

Friend, I swear to you as one who has returned,
if only to bear witness:
No satanic furies beat their kited wings,
no bats shriek overhead.
There are no flames.
No vats of boiling oil wait to greet us
in that doleful kingdom--nothing of the sort.
The gentleman who will ferry you across
is all solicitude and courtesy.
The river, black, like [a calm pond?]
The crossing, less eventful than one might have guessed.

Though, no doubt, you will think
that it's far too windy on the water,
that the glare is awful,
that you're tired, hungry, ill-at-ease
or that, if nothing else,
the quiet is unnerving,
that you need a drink,
a cigarette, a cup of coffee.

Go here for three more poems by Steve Kowit. His poem Grammar Lesson is found here too. Mr. Kowit has a delightful sense of humor. Read his poems aloud!

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.

--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)