Francis Bacon Triptych, by Paul Hetherington

​Francis Bacon Triptych

1.
A sweep of pigments, standing near hospital grounds, finding in his body unwieldy gobs of surrealism. In this puzzle of light, buildings fall into recollections of other paintings. Has de Chirico walked here? Windows lean inwards

2.
as an intractable cage of lines. His father’s words were slashes of red. Accompanying Nanny Lightfoot, being horsewhipped by the Captain’s grooms, learning roulette, boyhood’s stretched and sketchy feeling saw him pacing up and down, as in a gallery, watching his lacerations become more and more aesthetic--

3.
as in Poussin’s Massacre or some scene of Crucifixion. Over time the wounds lost their rawness and he stepped back like a connoisseur, staring hard at the morning’s mirror, not recognising his face’s brushed, clean lines. He tipped water over the glass, disappearing in its blur and fall. That’s me, he thought, somewhere fading into absence. Almost unrecognisably, his gaze returned.

​Paul Hetherington

This prose poem was inspired by Francis Bacon and his work, including these pieces:
https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/paintings/three-studies-male-back
https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/paintings/triptych-0
https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/paintings/study-self-portrait-3
https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/paintings/crucifixion
​
Paul Hetherington is a distinguished Australian poet. He has published 16 full-length collections of poetry and prose poetry, including Her One Hundred and Seven Words (MadHat, 2021), the co-authored epistolary prose poetry sequence, Fugitive Letters (with Cassandra Atherton, Recent Work Press, 2020), and Typewriter and Manuscript (Life Before Man, 2020), along with a verse novel and 12 poetry chapbooks. He has won or been nominated for more than 30 national and international awards and competitions. With Cassandra Atherton, he is co-author of Prose Poetry: An Introduction (Princeton University Press, 2020) and co-editor of Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry (Melbourne University Press, 2020).