You crave your hateful wretch with a fury  9
      ~Brian Barney

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Nobody Knows Himself
(Caprichos no. 6: Nadie que conoce) 1796-1797
Etching and burnished aquatint; 1st edition, 1799

Original digital image copyright
Davison Art Center
Wesleyan University
prior permission from the DAC required for any subsequent use.


You crave your hateful wretch with a fury
You flee his brutal supremacy
Then you crawl listlessly home
Timorous and crying
Peering emptily from a selfless eye

Fraught with a wry caution I come
And supplicate myself
Hands outstretched
Reaching toward your abysmally vacuous soul
Seeking the same weary sustenance
You have disallowed me oft before

Pitilessly you speculate about my paltry feast
And how my zeal may augment your days
Flailing your taloned fingers
You snicker and sneer
Glaring iniquitously
You throw my sensitivities
Into a bedeviled disarray
Rendering me unworthy
Of you
And of all else

Hesitantly today
I joined you in the gazebo
You in your pretentious regalia
I in my more pragmatic attire
Where I
Resonating with a new resolve
Heeded your histrionic grousing
At a distance

And as your vehemence intensified
Spit misting the twilight fog
Your strident vociferations
Sucked soundless
By the indifferent air
I laughed you silent
I smiled you gone
I sighed you forgotten