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Butterflies in Hell

This was not my mother’s Mephistopheles,
where he stole a violin from an
unsuspecting fiddler;

No, if butterflies did exist in Hell,
where the pulsing of thousands
of delicate wings beating
themselves into submission
a thousand times over
in a small, badly-lit corner,

as every possible color dissolved
over and over again,
as the flames grew brighter,
with the moon-kissed wings of insects
beating on until their very last breath—

Liszt has created this.


  Carrie Magness Radna__

(inspired by Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz, no. 1 (Der Tanz in der Dorfischenke), S. 514,
as played by pianist Denis Matsuev at Carnegie Hall)