“The gold fish’s mouth”
So I decided not to watch the film
of the little known and rarely seen
chubby archangel Gabriel
standing at the tickets’ kiosk
holding up his sword
like a living menace, a creature
full of gilded beauty often
too vital
in his golden and red garments, champion
of virtues among familiar saints with vacant eyes
and an intimately sad Madonna revered
particularly by slaves.
I myself was a monk
looked in one of the yellowed cabinet of that museum chamber
motionless but fired with the zeal for the conversion,
a Jesuit, a Franciscan, a Benedictine missionary
exploiting the sensory impact of the music
coming out that gold fish’s mouth.
Erminia Passannanti, 27.10.2001
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