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La Serenissma

POETRY

A DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF VENICE

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.7K views

LA SERENISSIMA

 

…stucco white as cuttlefish. In shadows,

a lion’s mouth utters advantage or blame.

The whitewashed stench of the prison inspires

the palace. An improbable city:

a wedding of sky, water, stone, lagoon –

colours luminously true to art, art

celebrating business, gold transformed to

lead, marble, canvas, paint. The lake dwellers’

ambition: exploitation and caprice…

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

A DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF VENICE

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments1 min read2.1K views

DECLINE AND FALL

 

Once, there were no panhandlers in La

Serenissima. Now there are four beggars –

men from Dalmatia, the old colonies,

and a Roma woman with no past.

Near the Rialto, two alternate

on the same pitch: heads sunk, hands out, their stories

in English on cardboard. The third plays

an accordion near the Accademia,

his history on plywood at his feet.

Only the woman, dark-eyed, distressed, who sits

anonymous, huddled, swaddled against the

long wall of the Ospedale Civile,

looks charity the tourist in the eye.  She

takes the last  vaporetto  for Torcello

– and disembarks somewhere in the dark lagoon:

but returns always as if she were any

other traveller on the chopped and dancing

water, under the pellucid sky, in the

serenity of the light.

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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