Tag Archives: lifestyle

Getsemani

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Getsemani

In the afternoons, in Parque del Centario
turkey vultures soar on the updrafts
parrots and monkeys hang out in the trees
a malevolent iguana roams.

This where the slaves came in from Africa
and the gold left for Spain.
San Pedro Claver ministered to the slaves
gave them sanctuary and religion
protected them from the Spanish,
when he could,
so it’s not all bad news.


Pope John Paul Two visited Cartagena in 1986
and apologized for the Inquisition.
There’s a statue of him in one of the squares.
It’s not a Botero.

In the back of a restaurant
in Getsemani,
a girl with magenta hair
is singing “Losing my Religion”,
the lines the singer sings
cross the room
like planes in a cubist painting.

That’s Slim in the corner.

He lost his religion some time ago,
he thought the punishment
for impure actions, impure thoughts
was excessive, at a time when
he was all impure actions, impure thoughts.
He imagined going down to hell
and meeting Adolf Hitler
who would say to him:
What are you in for?
And he’d reply;
Impure actions, impure thoughts.
And he knew, he just knew
that Adolf would scoff.

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse

Image is photo of Graffiti, in Getsemani, Cartagena, Colombia.

Moon Rant

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IMG_1274 (2)

Moon Rant

Here I am
a cheddar searchlight in the sky
waiting for the arrival of man
with his small steps and giant leaps,
his garbage can machines,
his religion, his culture, his competing ideologies,
his self-aggrandizements, his bragging rights, his racism,
his greed, his pomposity, his self-importance,
his astronauts named “Buzz”.

I tell you, colonization never works out for the colonized.
I have no desire to be turned into a destination for space tourists
or a land fill or, more accurately, a moon fill.

What’s in it for me?
Where’s the re-mooneration?

They say that nature abhors a vacuum
well, I can handle a vacuum
it’s vacuity, I abhor.

This is a rework of a previous post prompted by a challengea while back from Sarah over at dVerse to write a piece of prosery, of flash fiction (limit 144 words) incorporating the phrase “I dreamt I was the moon” from a poem by Alice Oswald.

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.