Best Pompeii Poems
When nature takes a turn for the worst
grumbling rumbles shakes
great balls of fire falling
in her tears black snowfalls
Burning smell of sulphur burns
rolling down the mountains molten lava
they salute death rivers of flames
the chariots of Hell's fire
Crying infants wailing out mercy
embraced in their mothers arms
held together with fathers
They roared to the Gods for help
falling silver ashes remains
Imagining God had forsaken them
as the skies disappeared from their eyes
falling into the darkening death vision
Their universe plunged into darkness
Victims they felt death falling upon them
A deadly feeling they are the children
cursed by the damned volcano
No where to run
No where to hide
They stop and the black ash swallows them
like a carpet of night forever gone
but always remembered in hearts
the fall of a great city in living history
truly lives forever in the archives of our time
I would be the Celtic gladiator
"POMPEII"
Her name was Pompeii
and I her mother,
loving her beyond measure,
took great angst, my heart bursting
from the betrayal -
she, taking several lovers
basking in the underworld
where men are fickle
leaving unfinished poems
on walls shaking like loins
buried deep and dry
in denial of her
sacrificial innocence,
welcoming rape, walking fire
tight, lost and moaning, there the
seductions are granted
in a last ceremony where
they lay entombed joined
burning at the hips
silent as ash glistening
powdery on parched lips
I left my feelings, volcanic
and unforgettable;
a romantic gesture,
I graffitied my message,
intimately on every door
and wall of their crumbling
hallways, passages filling up
with the feelings I felt,
they are all caressed by me,
faces upturned, beseeching
idealised, amorous, extreme
they are frozen touching
each others canvas, their
windows open now
to those that are closed;
the words missing
sentences to be completed
somewhere in the
minds of others
with sockets black coals
now glowing in another future,
they still hear me
shake with rage, my bones
like hell fire still crack to this day,
on another field, on another plane,
I am the soul of a lost world calling,
they will remember me
of me they will be afraid,
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
their tongues will touch
and speak of what I have done
rediscovering my pure love for her
unravelling, they will seek the
missing words like a puzzle
found in a dream
the story is delivered
on a wall, somewhere
I have etched
in Vulgar Latin
(LadyLabyrinth / 2020)
gvlm
side by side
happy and fulfilled
blissful and serene
the end was near
we closed our eyes
for one last kiss
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Mount Vesuvius erupts in anger
warm air like butterfly wings
flashes against our cheeks
I hold you my final light...
We stand on the edge of the sea
a galaxy of smoke and soot
swirls around us...
My love I wish
I had wings to carry us
all I have is my shoulder
for you to lean on...
Let us press our lips together
in these final moments
perhaps in the future
archaeologists will find us
As lovers preserved in ash...
~ ~
Italian winds blow gently and smooth
Over hushed dusty remnants of lives past,
This once thriving city clueless of its fate
Lies frozen in time under hot blazing sun.
Chariots and horses stopped in their tracks,
Brothel patrons lie in silent passion
On lava beds of ashen cold comfort,
Slaves free of earthly bonds lie in timeless sleep,
Their masters’ tongues forever stilled from curse.
Nigh two thousand years of a forced respite
For countless lives ceased by nature’s great wrath,
Holy temples, theatres and great arenas
Forever preserved beneath a molten shroud.
Pompeian spectres roam their burial ground
Haunted by ancient Vesuvian eyes,
Watching and waiting until it’s time
To erupt her cruel rage once again.
In the Grecian bay, of Paradise lost, a slumbering Giant
Does sleep, at eases restless peace.
Beneath thunder mountain's base, across the blue divide,
Exists a bustling sea port, full of culture and tradition.
Beware Pompeii, for natures wrath hovers above thee.
Within safety’s sheltering harbor, the population lies
Completely at fates mercy, as if innocence children, left
Alone to play in the wilderness, without protection.
Look into the stilled waters, it is a thin pain of glass,
A mirror's image of a grand utopian society,
That's shattered in a tenth of a second by reality.
Here their echoing foot steps, down ancient
Roman roads, voices screams silenced by
Death's gloved hands, striking without warning.
A phantom people frozen in stone, hidden
Beneath an ashen graveyard.
Forgotten by posterity, until unearthed exposed
To destiny’s future.
Hell's fire storm unleashed on earth,
It begins with a quaking rumbling, an eruptions
Mumbling, forecasting a foreboding doom lying
Stirring does the mountain dragon, awaking
Inhaling, exhaling, releasing calamity’s white
Hot blaze against Pompeii, with the raw force
Of ten Hiroshima bombs.
A volcanic shock wave felt around the world,
Smokes pyroclastic cloud blinding the sun,
And biting at the global sphere itself.
Catechism's ultimate destructive tidal wave,
Rocks mankind to it's inner most core,
Leaving at flash points center, nothing alive.
Apocalypses Thunder Dome, a seething fire pit,
From which evacuation’s few survivors,
Become castaways orphans, left to the four
Winds mercy, a nation without a country,
A people of the seven seas.
Behind them are their kindred, memories
Forsaken of flesh and bone, now ashen
Residue buried alive for all time,
Legacy's tribute to the volcano
Known as Mt. Vesuvius, and a paradise lost,
Called Pompeii.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Pompeii Slave Girl
There was a young slave of Pompeii
Whose master had ordered her stay
But she made a dash
Whilst he turned to ash
Proving girls always have the last say.
Sometimes I feel like such a jerk
To hear friends talk of long lost work
Few leave their homes
All had good jobs
From nine to five
Just working slobs
When all is really said and done
Where was real life?
Where was the fun?
So as the years now just roll by
And no one really cares a bit
To hear these has beens spew their wit.
Smoke and ash covers the sky.
Its day, yet it’s as dark a night
There’s wailing of children and women scream.
The mountain rumbles with Vulcan’s might.
Lava is the only light.
There’s no saving us.
Refuge won’t come.
Armageddon rains down from the heavens.
We feel a higher powers’ presence.
The great city of Pompeii will be buried soon.
We all must face our impending doom
as the screaming and wailing stops.
(A Variation of: Your Departure Versus the Hindenburg by Kenneth Koch)
Every time you enter the room
I see it as an extension of
Pompeii
That great 76 A.D. volcano erupting
In molten lava like a 2-liter of soda exploding
after it has been shaken.
When you enter a room,
people run in fear to
hide from your presence.
We moved inexorably
towards idiocracy
we slipped without grip
towards dependency
We prayed filled with nothing
but false ecstasy
we crept towards our death
instinctively
We lived as slaves
fully and intentionally
We are Pompeii, Herculaneum
the ones who filled
the stadium
Called for pitiless blood
to warmly run
worshiped bearded men
and starry sun
causation, ruination
living and dead
The attraction of a flower wild-
brings out in all,the perpetual child
Pompeii
Amid ashes pumice lay
Life in cinders Pompeii in disarray
Vesuvius plumed angry swell
Archeologists unearth deathly knell
Volcanic vomit ample spume
from sunlight golden to darkened gloom
Roman bathing in waters pure
Nimbus of fires blazing coiffure
In 79 AD it's eruption did occur
No time to flee , No time for prayer
For sure a wrong analogy of mine
but this 'Furnace' it froze in time
thank you
I won a holiday voucher; good luck had come my way
So we put the money towards my bucket list holiday
Ever since was small I’d dreamed of visiting Italy
To view the Pompeii ruins a sight I wanted to see
We flew off to stay in Sorrento at the Hotel Caravelle
The hotel was so grand, our bedroom was really swell
We booked to go to Pompeii on an organised tour
A little minibus picked us up outside the hotel door
It took us on a trip to the local railway station
To meet our tour rep who’d fill us with information
Pompeii was so amazing, on cobbled streets we’d tread
visiting ruined houses, and seeing relics of the dead
who’d perished when Mount Vesuvius tragically erupted
bodies frozen in time when their lives were all disrupted
A visit to Herculaneum was the highlight of our vacation
I preferred it to Pompeii due to the state of preservation
The well preserved remains exceeded all expectation
I vow to I’ll return to Italy without any hesitation!
We both want to repeat a bus trip along the Amalfi drive
With the skill of our bus driver we made it home alive!
What Have You Kicked Off On Your Bucket List Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Chantelle Anne Cooke
12/04/20
volcano erupts
bodies covered in ashes
fear etched on faces
10th September 2017