Where was Azrael / when

Saturn devoured his son? / When

That rough beast / tore limb from limb /

White eyes and wider than their sockets /

Like falling moons / and the body /

Impossibly hunched / into a space beyond

Madness / where there was hardly soul left

To save?

What did Goya see / while he

Crunched on fish and fowl / and

Emptied brittle bones / on a table

Of Spanish wood? / Would he crack

His country’s marrow / tenderised by

Three decades of terror / and slurp

Out / the last bits left to love?

Maybe he could still hear / a world deafening

To reason / and the poetry of a primaeval

Betrayal / a father’s stillborn future /

And a son’s ravaged inheritance /

Maybe he fought / To lock the floodgates of fear /

To anchor his final praise / for the Kingdom of Man

And show at last / the tattered bits

Of the worm-eaten world?

Look again at Saturn

His drivel-gushing mouth / wide in surprise

What if his eyes / of putrescence / were

Drawn inexorably outside / to the artist’s

Unflinching gaze / cacophonic in his soundless world /

And Saturn could not blink

For the horror he saw there?