David Selzer is a writer of poetry, prose fiction, screenplays and stage plays. He embraces digital platforms to share his work of more than fifty years… READ MORE


  • CONVERT OR DIE

    In a large chamber behind the colossal

    Doric colonnades four columns deep –

    Bernini’s ‘maternal arms of mother church’ –

    that enclose both sides of St Peter’s Square

    is an exhibition: How Christ Was Brought

    To The New World. There are extensive maps

    and long lists of dates, the occasional

    Christian martyr’s cross or chasuble,

    and illustrations of happy converts,

    but not a hint of the laying waste

    to inconvenient cultures, the blood

    and lamentation, the casuistry,

    the theft, and servitude.

     

     


    2 responses to “CONVERT OR DIE”


    1. Alex Cox Avatar
      Alex Cox

      Rome is the centre of the Western Empire, boss. In 1980 I saw an exhibition in the Colliseum, showing Mussolini’s architectural plans for Rome. These included a massive, silver, triumphal arch.

      This disturbed me quite a bit, because I’d seen the finished piece the previous year, in St Louis, MO, where the Americans had built Il Duce’s arch as their ‘Gateway to The West’.

      1. David Selzer Avatar

        I first saw the Gateway Arch from Cahokia – https://davidselzer.com/2015/02/monks-mound-cahokia-illinois/. I wondered at the time, and now I know. So, thank

          you

        , boss!

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