Cowering, humans flee.
Rape and murder, enlightened terrors
Plough through mortal roads and valleys.
Farmhouse walls and hovel stalls tremble.
Napoléon’s caissons roll by
Goya’s anxious heart dissembles.
#
The twin horrors enraged
Abandoned by raison, the monsters
Monarchy, Papacy, uncaged.
Outside his pastoral window frames
Life evolves, spawning dark monsters,
Hollow, vile and evil to our shame.
#
The masked Observer
A yellow phantasmal shadow casts
Standing unequal to the fervor.
While the power-hungry cannibals
Assault his psyche, Infidels
Ravage the women like animals.
#
Do not hide your sad face.
Inquisitions and conflict abound
Deaf ears cannot mute or erase.
Sanity captured by dark forces
Goya’s frame falters; his mind fails.
Power feasts on human resources.
#
Goya reviles your acts!
You hypocrites, unenlightened whores!
Pompous in your biretta hats.
Your crimes are against huddled masses.
The ruts of war wear not the mud
But trodden down the lower classes.
#
Lonely, disillusioned,
The bitter melon, he bears witness –
Dismembered, tortured, contusioned
Raw experience beats down reason.
These religious cannibals
Anonymous, roam free as demons.
#
Ignorance and evil
Flaunt intolerance with heinous glee
Gripping humans primeval.
Destitute Goya in paint freezes.
Our voices cannot remain silent allowing empire to do as it pleases.
#
#
An ekphrastic poem about Goya’s view on the inquisition and the horrors of the Napoleonic wars. The painting expresses the deepest, darkest aspects of his psyche. It mirrors Ukraine and Putin’s war today.
The word “Goya” literally means bitter melon.
“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” ― Francisco de Goya