Tonight's Poet Corner: Purgatory
Purgatory by Belinda Roddie Why is it that, when I try to own up to mistakes, all that I seem to ever do is overcompensate? I am dredged in the wet flour of my sins, but still, how sinful are they when the devil hasn't even declared that they pass the literal smell test? When he sniffs, his nostrils flare like those of a hormonal bull. Disheartened am I, yet resolute I remain. I wear the pain of my own neuroses on my shoulders like a brand new coat. I celebrate my breakdowns as if they were freshly declared holidays, and I, above everyone, am aware of my own sense of carnal strength. I wrote a novel the other day that was shorter than Death: does that still make it a novel? How long do sagas have to last before they're considered sagas, and I can take up the spare throne alongside Beowulf and Gilgamesh - this ruddy handsome Middle Eastern and Anglo-Saxon behemoths holding the torch to an unfamiliar heaven, who have slain dragons but accepted mortality lik