Saturday, October 28, 2017

Kit Kelen #665 - a mission (Mezquita, Cordoba)



665
a mission
Mezquita, Córdoba

you go slow
to be in a place

my mission in Europe –
to give no more money to the Catholic Church
(not that they're less deserving than others
just that they have enough)

it's being told in German, in French
in English – the glories are told
of the artisans, their backs broken to this
we hardly here a whisper

look what these paupers own!
apart from wars and auto-da-fé
inquisitions all sorts, epochal pederasty

gaze upon the marble hardware!
the skulls and crossbones in the floor
here I am in a stolen mosque
reconquered don't you know
and it is true the Visigoths had pillaged together
a little church before

your decent barbarian knocks the thing down
for a comfortable little humpy – it's tribal
this is all of the story owned

I know about Sancta Sofia in Istanbul
two wrongs not making a right and so

as a child I got into trouble drawing a bunch of them
boiled in a pot when one of our teachers went off to Africa
I guess you'd call that racism
I thought it was good clean fun
(they were boiled up in a copper after all)

I could see the point of feeding the lions – cruel pagan that I was
it fills their hearts with anger still

burned at the stake, boiled in a pot
seems like quid pro quo

in the forest of columns
so many names are trodden
they paid and they were saved

for this dumb show of the devout
you see the itch of it in them

you won't get to sit in the rich bastards' seats

those in marble still live

and don't they glory in the story
as if no other trumpet told

but I love a prince of peace
and Jesus has to love me
it's in the job description

I just think his religion's been a little overdone

there is a surfeit of sunlight outside

you can read it as a wood indoors
and it looks as if a fire passed through
generations of worshippers time took for undergrowth
they're the ashes swept out

there will be closing time for us too

I'm just thinking this place would make an incredible pool hall

in Macao this would be more gaming rooms – with authentic atmosphere
(a wonder they haven't built it already)

I could have come for the free hour in the morning
but sometimes you have to pay
for a cool place to pace out day's middle

the church is always a winner

these pigeons to the outside clinging
they have a shot at the sun
unsure of the symbolic price 





 

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