Stratis Havarti - Venice

I never want to visit Venice,
its waters put me off, especially
in the summer and the idea of raw
sewage bobbing in the canals.

Reading James's Daisy Miller
I am stifled by the decadence
of the tale, the opulent emptiness
of the rich; their pedestrian lives.

Watching Visconti's Death in Venice
I am disturbed by the moroseness
of the main character, his chilling
deadly presence in the deck chair

looking at the teenage boy without
a word being spoken; the sullen,
sickly presence of something
oozing from the film, breathing

out of celluloid down onto me
in the cinema. Lord Byron
calls the city- Sea Sodom.
I never want to visit Venice.

Stratis Havarti

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/venice-20/