Avaritia

Christopher Columbus was a good man

But as Bartholomew De Las Casas wrote

“The admiral (…) was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable

crimes against the Indians.”

“murder, murder” dictated Gold, in a sweet mephistophelian voice

And Columbus, obedient and earnest,

Complied.

“I will give gold enough to fill a room twenty-two feet long and seventeen wide, up to a

white line which is halfway up the wall,” said Atahualpa

with a stern look, negotiating his gold for his blood

Pizzaro’s mind drew mountains of gold covering Spain in Oro puro.

But across fragile promises the mephistophelian voice thundered:

“Burn, burn at the stake!”

In a final act of humiliation, Juan Santos Atahualpa

Died a good Christian

The iron garrote on his people

Never to be lifted.

Gold extracted from bodies piled over each other

Like limbless dolls in a human slaughter house

Gold extracted by living bodies from narrow shafts

Gold carried back into narrow shafts

On dead bodied

Never-ending travelling

Hallucinatory dance on mephistophelian rhythms

A chorus of whispers echoing from golden financial cathedrals

“More, more!”