Goya's Ghosts

I

Country lads at country trades,
Working ways help enlarge;
Arms through baskets of loving maids,
Fleece or flirt or fight to remain in charge.
A narrative gathers up their woven days,
Death drifts above a circular stage,
Frustrated hopes burst into murderous flames.
The domed sky speaks eloquently of love,
Saints confirm their role in perpetual space,
All eyes fall on the descending dove:
Aligned and mute, an all powerful, alabaster race.
Below domesticated, dagger-eyed felines abound,
Children at miniature games in gold-threaded evening gowns,
While the masters run their lean-limbed hounds.


II

The Emperor’s clothes might be invisible;
What these inhabit has timeless clarity,
A means to bask in opulent advantage,
Their souls so extravagantly visible.
Decorative charm, a craftsman’s work buffers
Poverty that forever dwells within:
A portentous gathering of blood-webbed kin
Transfigured into a portrait of unvarnished sin.
The whole uneasy playground of golden tapestried delight
Burns then flowers in the onlooker’s sight.
Can I fathom a love of man?
Like molten ash easing forward in a hellish course,
The artist forms the scene at its unseen source:
Suddenly a lone pilgrim restores the quest to its force.


III

Love cannot be contained it is said,
Unless a painter can make you believe.
The majesty of the physical world,
The unreality of fashion veils the human sex,
Undulated movement of the breath:
A splendid willow displays its lashing teeth.
Breasts aimed at the sky,
Bare of emblematic, symbolic need,
Raw as any form of sexual greed.
His maja, dressed undressed just like make believe.
Someone draws her bath, she’s more than pleased.
Her lover frets with a golden pocket watch,
Possession is something he staunchly defends.
His lady beckons the world in a most sumptuous bed.


IV

Differentiated power squares off,
Impersonal figures hidden with indivisibility
Directed to a single satisfying end,
Death by assassination.
The machinery of overextended rule
Focused in one flaming spirit rising,
Sundered figures strew the battleground.
Mounted men pry loose the golden crown,
While mercenaries prowl ancestral ground.
A whirl of violence, driven lust;
Imbalance charges first through the mind,
A white-faced river frothing at the mouth:
Severed heads mounted on upright lances,
Another killer will await his chances.


V

Wretched terror flocks under drooling skies,
A roving parade of hammer-headed fools:
Drink, make mirth, inside-out beneath a phantom sun;
A knot of men contorted in the absence of a dream,
Eyes pressed up against an invisible screen:
A circle of sorcerers levitate in the inky light,
Swelling cries throb in a penitent’s sight.
Melancholy devours his offspring’s head,
His golden mane stained with his dread.
Cripples race to dominate the realm;
Hatred flows like blood beneath their feet,
Bodies drained of any corporal heat.
Against the walls of his final ramshackle lair,
A crazed spirit is yanking out Medusa’s hair.