Coda: Eight Poems in Black, after Goya

[N.B. What began for me with 50 Caprichos after Goya & has continued with variations on “The Disasters of War” will end with this Coda, first sketched in Madrid 2007, in the shadow of his darkest, brightest works. (J.R.)]

1/

two women watch
a man    his hand
under his cloak
or in his pants    the act
that causes one
to grin, the other
wryly looking on
as in a dream

2/

a procession of
old whores & madams
toothless
bearing fardels
& a gallant
from a former time
lined up along the base
of a grey mountain
holy crones
& well-laced fathers
of the inquisition.

3/

A Pilgrimage for San Isidro

who but the dead

can scream so
with their eyes rolled back
their mouths
like black holes
whom a blind man leads
strikes a guitar
& to his left
two men in black
two women in half-white
without a face

4/

Saturn
devouring his sons
whites of his eyes
as brilliant as
the red blood flowing
from the severed
neck
blood on his hands
his penis hot
& throbbing

5/

man fighting man
with cudgels
drawing blood
a stream of red
across his face
& sinking
ever deeper
into the mud

6/

a poor dog
hidden in the brown
& yellow mud
that could be clouds
– the way they suffer
without sound –

7/

The Witches Sabbath (1)

Satan as a great

goat    black
& holding court
before a ring
of men & women,
too deformed
from watching
the small figure
crouching
covered with
white shroud,
& at the edge
a young boy,
almost cut
from sight
the only
gentle soul,
whose screaming
mother hollers
at the assembled
crones

8/

The Witches Sabbath (2)

red more brilliant

than her eyes,
the blanket set across
her mouth,
poor doll & witch,
& yet the eyes
are turning backwards
in her head,
the one who flies with her,
a rock between
his teeth, a tongue
made stone,
the yellow wind
spiking his hair,
who has no choice
but points a finger
at a hill in space,
a city on a hill,
that vanishes.
Nothing has changed
since then,
try as we will,
nor will it please you,
friend & father,
the ragged soldiers
aiming guns,
the line of pilgrims,
barely seen,
circling the lonely fell,
the old witch
like a sibyl
arisen from your dream
ready to tell it all.

 

* Originally published in J.R., Concealments & Caprichos, Black Widow Press, 2008.