Talk Show From Hell Poem by michael spangenberg

Three damned deceased souls
Imaginary depiction of the afterlife
Brought to the same room in Hell
Locked inside by a mysterious valet
They'd all expected torture devices
Punish them for eternity, but instead
Find a plain room furnished
2nd French Empire style.

'Huis clos, ' where's the exit?
There's no check-out device
Vicious cycle, dead end street
Behind closed doors
With no way out.

At first, none of them will admit
The reason for their damnation
Joseph says that he's executed
For being a pacifist, while Estelle
Insists that a mistake has been made
Inès demand that they all stop lying
To themselves, confess to their moral crimes
Breakdown of law & order, malicious intent.

They refuse to believe that they have all
Ended up in the room by random accident
Soon they realize that they've been placed
Together to make each other miserable
Condemned to see oneself forever object
from the view of an another, alien soul
And they lived unhappily ever after, guaranteed
They are to be one another's torturers
The fire of Hell are the other people
In the room, the perpetual neighbors
- 'L'enfer, c'est les autres.'

And you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your
strength, the 2nd commandment is this:
'Love your neighbor as yourself'
(Mark 12: 31) .

Footnote - Poetic variation based on
JP Sartre, Huis Clos, Paris 1944.