Purgatory

I was sucked in by an eddy of raging lava
An infernal hole of blinking redness and darkness.
My soul groping for some outgrowth in the rim
Of a gaping caldera brimming with toxic fumes

A wreath was tossed by a kind specter from an overhang
Brightening for a few moments the evil mouth
Some spark of hope before the engulfing of the light
Before the obliteration of all that is good and right

You were to redeem me from my wretchedness
But like an evil boil on the land's face
You only caused me pain and anguish
A throbbing ache on a quivering flesh

I sailed through treacherous straits
Via the doldrums and the lake of the Hydra
Into the mythical triangle of the Sargasso
You devoured and sunk me a thousand fathoms

You drove me with your feigned affection
How commiserating you seemed of my frailties and woes
The shamness of it reeked through shuttered portholes
As I viewed a false parade of masquerading sneers

I have loved you much, too much to my undoing
You were the words of my song, the furnace of my loins
My magic box wherein stowed my dreams, fantasies,
My creed and my joys, where dwell my passion and salvation

You have cast me to an oblivion of your creation
Oh woman loved, but heartlessly not loving back
A place of ungranted desires, of pain without remission
My soul in ruin and my heart pathetic in cold chains

I turn my back on you now, woman!
Whatever foolish notions I had harbored now departed
I have sobered up from a mindless stupor held so long
Worms neath the bark now exposed and evasive of the light

While ugliness have now sprouted from your brows
I look back with gratitude for all the momentary pleasures
Crushed but ecstatic in your grasping tentacles then
Relieved at last, gaining freedom from your stranglehold