Pictures from Goya: The Black Paintings
by Evan Harrison
I. Saturn
Terror begets violence purely.
The wall of Quinta del Sordo,
honeyed in late dawn,
is painted with this—somehow
the artist sleeps.
It begins with eyes
fattened inwardly,
the mouthed flesh
of the beast’s fixation,
colored like strawberry,
passing into the oral shadows
like an impulse.
Were it deliberate—
the devouring, the fists
doubled to preclude loss—
perhaps we could dismiss
the image with a word
like evil.
As it’s wrought,
result swallows intention
and our nature crouches,
half-obscured.
[Hear Evan read “Saturn”]
II. Duel with Cudgels
Light washes into the sky,
gilding cloudbanks:
a divine afterthought.
Any plea—the ancient land,
the silence of morning—
is buried under an opposing face,
swollen to hills and blood ridges.
The duel cannot cease
mid-swing. One blow
with splintering wood
cannot fall unanswered.
The black-haired no longer
guards his torso—he will go
into darkness first, yet
remain sunken to his thighs
in earth, and the victor
must find some bounty
in that deadened face—
nor can he leave what’s done.
[Hear Evan read “Duel with Cudgels”]
III. The Colossus
Steer abscond with their meat
and labor, leaving the human
torrent, maids collapsing through fingers,
horses jettisoning their riders.
If not for the rattle of wagons,
colliding shrieks, mock-final
professions of love,
we could hear the colossus
humming, his steps carried
toward the lowland.
[Hear Evan read “The Colossus”]
IV. Men Reading
Here, this wall,
rage now dormant,
mind returned to its chair:
one holds the pages
in his lap, guides the men
across lines—his body
a closet, pitch smoke.
At his shoulder, in white,
another looks on, as if
taken in. Another opens
his mouth to release
clouding from his thought.
Another has no eyes.
Another pleads at the ceiling,
further and further away
from the words, the huddle
he warms in. Men reading,
still alone.
[Hear Evan read “Men Reading”]
