Christmas in Hell? – A poem

Written for the Poetry Zoo Christmas anthology please enjoy:

Christmas in Hell?

A north wind blows an ash hot gale.
A scarabaean plague descends.
And pregnant clouds that should entail
Sweet soothing rain, in mocking send
Fire from the sky, to scorch the land
From tropic tip to southern sound.

As limb on sweaty limb resides,
Dour dwellers in this southern clime
Make haste toward retreating tides
To bathe in shark infested brine.
And waves of blist’ring sun torment
Many a red robed mendicant.

We turn the body on the spit.
Upheld tradition’s our remit.
In Dante’s circles do we stand,
For Christmas in this wide brown land?