Goya

I used to wait near the phone anticipating your reply I knew nothing could come from it Circumstances Responsibilities Tradition Conformity Cowardice presented by fear of loss I knew these were insurmountable But I persisted with the vigor of any romantic Thinking my attention charm and transparency Could coach you…

Don’t drop your fife in the shower Goya’s most readable black painting, Fight with Cudgels is one of those paradigmatic paintings, like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, which introduces a blinkering understanding of an artist’s oeuvre, one which will be applied to all of their paintings, for better or worse, and…

Free verse inspired by Francisco Goya’s painting, “The Shipwreck” — 1. Well into the dead of night we sat trading stories of haunted ships, sipped the rippling dark from a cleft-lipped chalice that smelled breezes blended in vaporous salt. Between every two shoulders the sun sat sinking awhile slapping gold after gold upon skin-textured bronze until the sky was sucked clean down to the ocean bed…

A poem on the tsar of greed and death. Inspired by Goya’s painting, ‘Witches’ Sabbath’. — Deep down in my slice of earth where not a night sets on vain orange suns and no haloed wing shadows a shore, Where horns stand hell-ward in twisted greed, taunting the fallen saints like feelers for the singed and startled wombs — There I need you, sacred scums, the…

Three paintings where eyes are a portal to the depth of the soul: From Ivan the Terrible to… — They say that eyes are the portal to one’s soul. This comes from an interpretation of the bible verse Matthew 6:22–24 that says, “The eye is the lamp of the body”. But, in a way, I believe that eyes are a portal to something deeper. What can be deeper than…

A poetic tribute to Francisco Goya’s dark painting, Asmodea How, dear, is the flight so far, our bodies light as a teardrop’s ghost haunting ancient skulls? Do you feel in the depths of ears the hiss of time, shrill as the saw rending a bone way too fresh to forget flesh’s…

Poem inspired by Francisco Goya’s painting, ‘The Colossus’ — At war is my heart, plump and calloused, ​sized a pregnant whale thrice-impaled ​and flailing just the same ​in that private pool of blood and froth. I guard heavens from brays and prayers and stare down horizons bathed in miry light, my trunk…

Poem inspired by Francisco Goya’s painting ‘The Parasol’ — It apes a bird of no heights whose excuse is a single wing, giving the sun a face and a bed to rest its rage. In its vacuous heart of hearts it aches to be an erect pine, selfish in its lean canopy with all…

Art and Mythology as social criticism in history — The myth of Cronus The first time I saw Goya’s Saturn devouring his son I felt a great impression for the painting and tremendous curiosity for its title. I was a child raised in the core of Judeo-Christian family values, so that image gave me nightmares for a season. It terrified me to think…