notes for the poem a few posts below, in case anyone's wondering where the hell THAT poem came from:

Bridge of Sighs: A bridge in Venice, Italy. Legend has it that if you kiss under the Bridge of Sighs, your love will last forever.

Eighteenth level of hell: The Chinese soap operas that consumed most of my childhood told me that hell has 18 levels... and that if you try hard enough, you can fly around like a bird.

River Styx: In Greek (?) mythology, the river serving as a moat for the Underworld, keeping the dead from leaving and the living from entering. You have to pay Charon to ferry you across. Styx means "hated."

Cerberus: Greek and Roman Mythology: Three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades

poor huddled masses: The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry masses yearning to breathe free. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

My soul’s sanctum for a seat: pilfered from an Eminem lyric: "The sinner's mind is his sanctum"

“Bring the eternal note of sadness in” : a line from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. One of my favorite poems...i have taken to writing the end of it on dry-erase boards across Southern California.

Ark of the Covenant: a very holy piece of furniture mentioned in the Old Testament...with two gold, winged Cherubim on top of the Mercy seat.

between the cherubim’s wings: (excerpt from Catholic Encyclopedia, link above): The holiest part of the Ark seems to have been the oracle, that is to say the place whence Yahweh made his prescriptions to Israel. "Thence", the Lord had said to Moses,

will I give orders, and will speak to thee over the propitiatory, and from the midst of these two cherubims, which shall be upon the Ark of the testimony, all things which I will command the children of Israel by thee" (Ex., xxv, 22). And indeed we read in Num., vii, 89, that when Moses "entered into the tabernacle of the covenant, to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the propitiatory, that was over the ark between the two cherubims".

Yahweh used to speak to his servant in a cloud over the oracle (Lev., xvi, 2). This was, very likely, also the way in which he communicated with Josue after the death of the first leader of Israel (cf. Jos., vii, 6-1). The oracle was, so to say, the very heart of the sanctuary, the dwelling place of God; hence we read in scores of passages of the Old Testament that Yahweh "sitteth on [or rather, by] the cherubim".