No, insistent music, don’t speak to me

of the heavens!  It’s death, it’s trembling,

it is taking me apart from within

without compassion!  If I can’t live like

as a flower in the pure air a palm tree

opens its green chalice and arrive home

after a brutal day.. Did I say “home?”

There is no home in a foreign nation!

I returned in broken pieces of flames!

I lift myself from off the floor: I raise

and gather up the remnants of myself;

saddened like a statue of broken Christ:

I work upright appearing as a man

from the outside.  Look!  Come see what’s inside!

But take the path that toward Virgil guides

If not, you remain outside: the fire

circles the dampened cave: like hell flowers

blooming into wounds:  And gaping open

over the dried earth are burned feet

scalded wood fire!  Everything flowers

over the earthen grave!  No, tenacious

music, don’t speak to me of the heavens.