Five Caprichos: After Goya

FIVE CAPRICHOS
after Goya


1
THIS WAITING GAME

A woman in a mask
is like a queen.
She gives a hand to those
who give her theirs,
the monkey faces
& the faces
of old tarts.
She trembles
& the crowd
below the stage
applauds her.
It is late.
A woman leaning on a stick
tells time. Her hands
are sensible.
Before the night
is halfway done
a stranger will assault
her bed.
This ravishment
is all that stands between
her fate & yours.
This waiting game.

2
A CHILD BESIEGED

A child besieged. A child
in terror sits
before her. Mothers
watching who arrive in
full length gowns,
a cloth that covers all.
My mother is my daughter,
& the other face,
the one behind,
is half a boy disguised
& frightened unto death
of something
that has never been
but now
may change to something
palpable
a final circumstance
that only
is.


3
LIKE A BEGGAR

What man, his lips
heavy with hair,
assumes a young girl's look?
What moustache trembles
on that mousy face?
Why does his finger push
so deep into
his mouth a tooth
comes loose
his moist tongue curled
to cough it up?
Who sets the table
that his elbows rest on?
& who is it who
waits behind him,
back bent,
like a beggar,
bathing at a trough?


4
THE LADY WITH THE FAN

The mask still there
-- like shades
over her eyes --
just when the sky goes grey,
the man beside her
turns into a shadow of
himself of all the others
who are also shadows.
Nobody speaks, except the crones
behind them, seated
on a rocky ledge,
are smiling, pointing
a sharp finger
at the lady with the fan,
the mask,
the hollow sky,
the man whose coat has come undone,
revealing air.


5
THE WORLD A MASQUERADE

Hats the men wear
-- striped --
atop their heads
so ugly & so cruel
the murky air
won't hide them.
One averts
his eyes, the other
stares at you
with hatred
fierce enough to freeze
your blood.
A third one sits,
a lump down on the ground,
his good eye riveted
on empty space
or on the rump of someone
bending over
-- man or girl --
with hat pulled tightly
over ears,
in deference to
the woman in the mask,
her gown adorned
with spanish laces.
Nadie se conoce,
Goya writes,
but all are gay
deceivers,
the world a masquerade
for those like you
who run from it for those
like me who stay.


Jerome Rothenberg

Posted over on Matter/6