Poetry
I’m writing some poems based on Caravaggio’s work. Here’s one where I was experimenting with using Caravaggio’s voice, he seemed to me to be someone without self-pity.
Caravaggio Sent This
I found it hard to apologise – words left a taint in my mouth
like I’d swallowed lead.
I’d killed a man and was feeling shame – thoughts of the widow in a damp cottage
on the fen, without wood or a cow,
was worrying at my bones, so I set
to paint again and turned myself into Goliath
with rolling eyes and pebble teeth.
David though was a dream.
Look at his robe – a fallen
angel’s wing draped beautifully
over his fit shoulder;
his bantam-weight arm
swings the trophy of my head –
complete with worry lines
and astonished mouth – as if to boot it over the hill.
Such a beautiful boy –
raised on the best playing fields,
his expression without triumph.
His bearing is all dignity; imagine him
washing away blood with the consideration
of a surgeon, stroking between the steeples
of his fingers. And there’s me; skin mixed
from a paste of coal dust and hog water,
a pearl on my lip, that is my best apology.