Three After Goya, by Akiva Israel

Witches' Sabbath, by Francisco Goya (Spain) 1798

Goya's Goat Painting
 
A half moon is up, and I'm half awake
alone in my cell. I think of drawing
a thing I saw, which had woods and women. 
Lone wanderers facing a decision.
 
The sky is half lit by some unseen sun.
As usual, in the fields not far, the goat-
a hungry fucker,
as usual, bleats . . . waiting to gorge on grass.
 
Solely Saturdays, I think of this noise
every winter a small, single bah
on a dark old field, there are certain things
every kid is too curious to ignore.
 
Sometimes, we should walk away from such noise. 
Sometimes, had we walked, we wouldn't be in hell.

The Third of May, 1808, by Francisco Goya (Spain) 1814

​Breathing Goya's Oil

Many people block the painting,
   but not the smell.
Many people will die this moment
   but I don't know them. They wait to be shot
in a line, hands up, it's dark and silent.
   Though I don't see this, people's black backs crowd
in and block, a daytime sea of darkness.
   So I get closer,
all night, and like a bone, I stick my head out.
   I'm in line, hands up, lights fade and quiet. I
call out under the shadow by the smell.
         Right then, I wake. A rain taps in the dark,
         light and chronic, exhaling oil-rich earth.

Saturn Devouring His Children, by Francisco Goya (Spain) 1823

​Alive on Goya's Black Wall
 
I wake up, after rain,
   not in bed.
I feel touched, in all directions, 
   caught by my love handles, he takes my hand.
Papa stop!
   His eyes bulge ... frenetic ... that suspect me?
Papa's beard swings like a tick-tock clock.
   This fisherman's hook, then my head chimes loud ...
blood pregnable on lips that kissed me once.
   Breath drunk in the dark, how no one and no
flood will clean tonight's sky of black holes. My
   breath smells like summer air in dark woods.
      Always again, that dream comes ...
      always still, in that painting peace comes.

Akiva Israel

Akiva Israel is a prison poet and an artist doing time in a prison for men. The author of Scholar by the Warsaw Fire, and other multidimensional artwork, he was at one point diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in childhood. Today, he is mistreated and misdiagnosed in the State Prison, where caricatures of his condition and orientation impact those in his situation across the country.