I look at my work. I look down on the valley.
I'm proud of its richness, of its green fertile fields,
And each time I do, I can count up the tally.
My sacrificial top's loss produces great yield.
There's beauty in the valley, in its farms and trees.
Morning fog gives it a mythical seduction.
Yet though I remember how the people did flee.
I take no fault for my fiery eruption.
I, a Volcano. What can one really expect?
My purpose is to scatter Earth's food from my cone.
Terror of fiery flow calls for quick respect.
Some townsfolk of Pompeii have been turned into stone.
Sweet moment recall
Laughter behind porticos
During Pompeii's fall.
Without you
My soul lies
An inner
Pompeii
Frozen
In time
Mounds
And
Mounds
Of fallen
Ash and
Century old
Magma
Weigh
Down
Inside me
What
Could have
Been
Should have
Been
Would have
Been
Alive and
Thriving
A volcano
Of love
Our volcano
Erupting
From us
Molting
Pleasure
Our very own
Carnal Pompeii.
So come back
To me
Bury me
With the
Contents
Of your core
Be my
Vesuvius
And leave me
Nevermore!
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
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.
Tragic is the end of Pompeii
Incarcerated in molten graves
The once thriving elitist lifestyle ended
Now in quietude they lay
And the culture that they created swept away
All bow heads and mourn for Pompeii
Nobody and nothing deserves to die that way
Mothers children and fathers had no chance of escape
As the lava flowed down the mountain side
They must have known in that moment they would die
Many just waited, many just cried
No where to run no where to hide
Nature for a change wrought human genocide
So spare a thought for the people of Pompeii
Silently sleeping in their molten graves.
volcano erupts
bodies covered in ashes
fear etched on faces
10th September 2017
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
I traveled to a land I always wanted to see.
I was on the slopes of Vesuvius in Italy.
Here I was among ancient ruins alone.
There was something strange carved on this wall of stone.
I called the tour guide to come over right away.
“I do not read Latin, so what does it say?
This looks like a poem on a wall here in Pompeii.
What did this person write on that fateful day?
Whoever this individual was, he or she was alone.
They had nothing better to do but to inscribe on the stone.”
Lena and I were now apart from the crowd.
When she read the inscription, she laughed aloud.
“We are among the remains of an excavated latrine.
What you see is graffiti that is rather obscene.
This writing is about a boy describing his girlfriend.
She had very big **** and a fat rear end.
Perhaps the gods were angry from this episode.
That is what may have made the mountain explode”
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