The Museum-Going Cannibal / Original Poem on Human Contradictions

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The poem, below, was conceived in response to a strong and disturbing Francis Bacon Exhibition. It was also my first iPhone poem, finger-typed on my smartphone, since I was asked to leave my backpack at the museum's cloakroom.

As those familiar with Bacon know, his work is a pretty damning verdict of the human condition, featuring nightmarish unravelings of violence and pain. Yet, staggering throughout the halls for a few hours, assaulted by so much powerfully-rendered unpleasantness, I also began to meditate on the deep contradictions inherent in human nature.

On one hand, there were these horrible paintings doubling up as giant distorting mirrors and, on the other hand, these deeply affecting and endearing, cultured museum-goers—straining to better understand or recognize themselves in these complex works of art.

Hence, the great contrasts in this poem: the hissing menace of bloodlust/war versus sublime impulses for art/charity...

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The Museum-Going Cannibal

Upright specimen, looking to be fine-tuned
on weekends by the civilizing influence of beauty,
standing still and reflecting in the refracted light
of another’s encounter with the sublime.

All polite smiles and hushed appreciation,
sidling up to some mounted painting and tilting
its head to sip and savor the brushstrokes, yet
downright vicious throughout the week.

Hankering after a bit of meat and blood
in the shape of a live woman or a dead man.
Never mind that they know them or not,
at times, any old body warm or cold will do.

What a mixed bag of bones: when not frenzied
and teetering at the abyss of some bestial appetite,
turning around and donating blood to unknowns:
as charitable and vulnerable as a winged thing.

© Yahia Lababidi

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("The Screaming Pope", painting by Francis Bacon: http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/portraits/francis_bacon.htm;
Wings image: Pixabay)