fumata bianca

A bright pink 1953 Ford Anglia
shambles along the Appian Way
with all its windows wound down.
The sound of tinny early '80s pop
rebounds off the seven hills of Rome.


Meanwhile, in St Peter's Square,
we're packed together like Sardinians,
cold as a glass of Peroni
with gelato floating within,
waiting frigidly for a signal ...

... the crowd cheers as white smoke billows
from the copper chimney
atop the Sistine Chapel.
Cue much surreptitious vaping
on the massed douche flutes and piccolos
as the band strikes up the Papal Anthem,
"Force and terror will not prevail,
 But Truth and Love will reign ..."

Wait!
Who the Holy Hell is this,
sashaying suavely on to the balcony
in white cassock, grey fur
and scarlet zucchetto?

Yeahhhhhh, ratfans ...

B.R. 24/05/2016

 

 

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) by Francis Bacon (Des Moines Art Center, Iowa)