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