The Misfortune Teller ("The Diabolical Cacophony")

And Virgil said to Dante: "Follow me."
Which Dante did in silence, loathe to speak.
"I'll guide you through the depths of Hell. You'll see,"

the ghostly Roman poet promised, "bleak
and terrifying visions. You'll confront
real horrors. Them you'll master, strong not weak."

"These Evil things the timid ones will hunt,
but not courageous seekers of the Truth.
Join those who've faced their fear and bear the brunt

of struggle with the Underworld's uncouth,
those souls far past redemption, damned to die
each day, forever. Bloody claw and tooth

their earthly legacy. Let's pass them by,
and, looking up, behold the starry sky."

So much for my synopsis of the tale,
from Canto I to Canto XXXIV:
Two went down; came back up; got out of jail.

Or something like that. Now I shall implore
(In fourteen lines of Terza Rima verse)
You, reader, to Reality abhor:

No need to dramatize the tame or terse.
No Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick.
Follow the ambulance. Pursue the hearse.

And then if you desire the truly sick,
bomb them, the hospitals, and graveyards, too:
the menu from which murderers will pick.

Contemporary evils are not new;
and sadly, as we see now, hardly few.