Spattered City

My response to this week's Totally Optional Prompt, specifically the Celan poem

Turn to the burning of the palaces, the melted gold
Trickling down into the cracks of the stones;
Turn to the glancing, feathering fire.
Turn to the history of this, our spattered
Endless city.

Turn to the skies, stitched all across with tracers
Turn to the wet blood still drawing lines like
A child learning to make his letters
On the wide walls of home.

Turn to the morning: there will be no morning.
No sun would dare to look at this. Tomorrow
There will be no tomorrow.

All we have caught up, all the nightmares we dreamed --
The darkest, earliest home of our
Accursed fathers -- plague after plague --
Could not soften our stiff necks. Psalms are useless here.

Fire from the airplanes, fire from the derricks, fire
From the mouth of Satan. This land,
Like a cracked earthen plate
Broken in the firing.