MASTERPIECE #3601

/// Musical Afternoon in Pompeii.
Just as Julia sat down to play,
an eruption nearby
cracked and blackened the sky.
Gods abhor off-tune music, some say.

/// Julia’s passion was Pompeiian pop.
Practiced daily; once started won’t stop.
Among very few things
which could still those plucked strings
was Vesuvius blowing its top.

/// Only some great musicians will know
what it’s like to perform in a show
where the crowd gets so hot
it’s as if they were caught
in a vast pyroclastic-type flow.

/// Many centuries past the disaster,
Julia’s form reappeared made of plaster.
Ash had hardened around
where she fell on the ground
(next to critics who once had harassed her).

/// As years passed her flesh rotted away,
but the void in the ashes would stay.
Plaster poured in that space
took the shape of her face;
it’s a shame she died screaming that day.