A Viennese sunset smolders

In the full courtyards,  

Howling with slurs

And promised reprisals

–

They carry the torches

Of the foaming lynch mobs

Not long ago

To kill the screams of the past 

–

They burn to snuff out

The mute glare of the stars,

The words of Kafka floating

With Hemingway and Wilde 

–

Leaving trails of smoke

As a passage of survival

The songs among the ashes,

Of a fallen empire