The Last Day of Pompeii (Karl Bryullov), Sonnet #589

 

Some chose to run, many to hide

Inside their temples and rooms,

Where every one of them died

In incendiary tombs.

I walk in a mourning fog

Outside and inside my mind,

Hand in hand with Gog Magog

And all the rest of my kind.

What are these floods and fires

And stupidity admirers

(Viruses in a cracked petri jar)?

How can I fight the coming war

We’re already losing day by day

As we run, slower and slower, away?

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My Human Disguise.

Mount Pinatubo, Sonnet #396

I lived near the shadow

Of Mount Pinatubo

Before it blew its top,

Awakening to stop

The sky with hot ashes,

Scar itself with gashes.

In days a typhoon flood

Buried the land in mud.

Sleep is not a muscle,

Though it stretches, tightens,

Can toss around Pluto

Like blood a corpuscle. 

Dream-bursted, it frightens

Like a blown volcano.