The Ekphrastic Review
  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact

Goya’s Fight with Cudgels, by James Swafford

1/5/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Fight with Cudgels by Francisco Goya y Lucientes (Spain) c. 1820-23

Goya’s Fight with Cudgels

They meet on an open field, north of the village,
on a peaceful morning, with official permission,                                
to bash out each other’s brains.

One bleeds from scalp and eyebrow, struck
by a lucky backhand.  The other raises a 
weak defensive elbow while both swing
wildly from the heels.  Or would, if they                                 
had heels.  Their lower legs have gone missing.  
No matter.  Neither intends to flee.

A couple of distant cattle might or might not
be paying any attention.  Nobody else.
Except the invisible painter, sitting nearby
for a waist-high view of the backlit pair who,
from this perspective, loom heroically large.

At home, Goya, old and deaf, pulls up a chair                        
to gaze at his mural, too big for this modest room.
The men tower like the mountains and the clouds,
colossal.  But terrified.  Stupid.  Doomed. 


James Swafford
​

James Swafford has recently begun writing poetry after a forty-year career teaching other people’s poems, mostly at Ithaca College in New York.  He lives in Toronto.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture

    ​​Find a writer, artist, or poem, etc. by searching here:
    PLEASE SUPPORT US
    Join us on FB and Twitter!
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact