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      March 24, 2011If You Took the Sistine ChapelJohn Nimmo

      and wiped blank
      Michelangelo’s sibyls and saints,
      the great, outstretched
      hand of God, the spark
      of life, Adam and all
      his progeny, and the angels
      of the heavenly host;
      if you plastered over
      the little window
      that the cardinals who gather
      from every nation
      send white smoke through
      when they have chosen
      the new pope;
      and then if you expelled
      the whole hive of drifting,
      gaping, sweating tourists
      and their guides
      babbling Dutch, Italian,
      Japanese, French, and German
      under lofted pom-poms,
      bowler hats, and stuffed toy kittens;
      and swept away the robed man
      who appears every five minutes
      to shout “Silenzio!”
      it would look and smell
      remarkably like
      the Fellowship Hall
      of the First Methodist Church,
      Maywood, California,
      built in 1928.

      from #17 - Summer 2002

      John Nimmo

      “Professionally, I am a scientist. One reason I write poetry is that it lets me be creative without having to worry about research budgets or laboratory infrastructure. Another is to explore myself, other people, and the existential matters of ‘life, the universe, and everything’ more deeply than I would otherwise. I think the main reason is the joy of working and playing with language.”