Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

thirty years ago
I began treading on Bacon’s toes

I searched for him in pubs galleries
butchers shops
in newspapers albums photographs

I met him in the Kunsthistoriches Museum
in Vienna he was standing before the portrait
Infanta Margarita
Infantin Margarita Teresa in blauen Kleid
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez
I’ve got him I thought
but it wasn’t him

after his death
after the departure of Francis Bacon
I placed him under a glass-jar
I wished to inspect the painter
from every side

taking into account
his natural tendency
to flee to vanish
to drink
to a shuffle
in time and space
from pub to pub
in the shape of a baroque putto
who’s lost his hat
and a red sock

I had
to immobilise him
I spent several weeks
visiting The Tate Gallery
shutting myself with him
consuming him with my eyes
I digested his terrible
meat-art copulating carcasses
shut in myself

I continued my dialogue
with Saturn absorbed in
eating his own children
the way of killing men and beasts is the same
I’ve seen it:
truckfuls of chopped-up men
who will not be saved
wrote in 1945

under the influence of alcohol
Bacon became warm sociable
generous hospitable
stood champagne caviar
turned into an angel
with a wing dipped
in a beer-mug

most of my paintings - he would say -
are the work of a man
in a state of Anxiety

while painting a certain triptych
I helped myself to a drink
it only helped once
he mumbled
while painting
Lager Beer Lager Beer on glass
in 1964 I painted
a crucifixion
blind drunk at times
I hardly knew what I was doing
but this time it helped

Bacon achieved a transformation
of a crucified being
into hanging dead meat
got up from the table and said softly
yes of course we are meat
we are potentially carrion
whenever I am at a butcher’s
I always think it astonishing
it’s not me hanging on the hook
must be pure chance

Rembrandt Velázquez
well yes they believed in the resurrection
of bodies they prayed before painting sessions
while we play
modern art is a game
from Picasso onwards we all play
better or worse

have you seen Dürer’s drawing
hands set in prayer
naturally they drank ate murdered
raped and tortured
but did believe in the resurrection of bodies
in life eternal

pity that... we...
he stopped and left no one knew
where
years passed
in my hunt for Bacon
I had help from Adam
poet translator
who owns a krótkopis (1)
lives in London
and Norwich
(and hides in Delft)

on 12 June 1985
he wrote to me:
Dear Tadeusz
today I went to a huge Bacon exhibition
and thought you’d find it very
satisfying. I went reluctantly,
but have no regrets because these early chewed-up heads
are very effective
in their composition and pigmentation.
But the newer paintings
failed to convince me. As I’ve already told you
I’ll be coming to Wroctaw (...)
(on the back a reproduction of Head IV
1948-1949)

But Adam
I can’t tell
Bacon
He doesn’t know Polish
I have no English

tell him my first book in 1947
was called Anxiety

I wrote: hacked
pink ideals
hang in slaughter-houses (...)
in 1956 I wrote:

the breathing meat
filled with blood
is still the food
for these perfect forms
they press so close around their spoil
that even silence does not penetrate
outside

we have both travelled
through a Waste Land

Bacon said he liked
looking at his paintings through glass

he even likes Rembrandt
behind glass
and is not bothered by chance viewers
reflected in the glass
who blur the image
and pass

I
hate pictures behind glass
I see myself there I remember once
noticing some Japanese
imposed on Mona Lisa’s smile
they were very animated
Gioconda became fixed
in a glass coffin
after that encounter
I’ve never been to The Louvre
Gioconda smiled into her moustache

Bacon locked
Pope Innocent VI in a cage
then Innocent X
and Pius XII
The Infanta Margarita in a sky-blue dress
and also a trail judge
all these personages started screaming

in 1994
on 14th February
St. Valentine’s Day
Francis Bacon appeared to me
on a glass screen
a round head an oval face
crumpled suit
I listen to Bacon
observe the portrait
the red face of Pope Innocent VI
I observe the Infanta’s gentle little mouth

I tried to show
the landscape of the mouth cavity
but failed
Bacon was saying
in the mouth cavity I find
all the beautiful colours
in Diego Velázquez’s paintings

glass muffles cries
I thought
Bacon was performing his operations
without anaesthetics
in the manner
of 18th century dentists
zahnextraktion
they also cut boils ulcers carbuncles
it’s not painful he would tell the Infanta
please open your mouth
unfortunately I have no anaesthetics
this will hurt
The Infanta in a gynaecological chair
Pope Innocent VI in an electric chair
Pope Pius XII in a waiting-room
Diego Velázquez
in a dentist’s chair
friend “George Dyer
in front of a mirror - 1968”
or on a lavatory seat...

I painted open mouths
Poussin’s cry at Chantilly
and Eisenstein’s cry on the steps
I painted
on a newspaper canvas
on reproductions of reproductions
in the corner of my studio
I had a pile of newsprint and photos
when I was young
I bought myself in Paris
a book on mouth-cavity diseases
Bacon was in conversation with David Sylvester
and paid no attention to me

I tried to provoke him
so asked whether he’d heard
about Sigmund Freud’s rotting mouth cavity
towards the end of his life even his faithful
dog would run away from his master
couldn’t stand the stench
why didn’t you paint
a mouth roof eaten
by a beautiful cancer

Bacon pretended not to hear

these models of yours rip
like flayed clouds
again you’ve placed Pope
Innocent whatever his number
in an oven
again you want to administer
“die Applizierung des Klistiers”
to this dreamy well-mannered and well-painted
Infanta

Again I thought of asking Adam
for help but Adam
smiled
at a tuna sandwich
and drank Heineken (2)
Adam tell him
tell him
in English

that for me closed lips
are the most beautiful landscape

the lips of
The Unknown Florentine Woman
Ritratto d’Ignota
by Andrea della Robbia

and tell him also
that Franz Kafka feared open
mouths and teeth full of meat and gold crowns
this is in my play The Trap
which was performed in Norwich
pity Bacon didn’t paint
a portrait of Eliot suffering
from the inflammation of the periosteum
his faced wrapped in a check
shawl

now Adam was eating a smoked salmon
sandwich
Tadeusz! this is your third pint
I did warn you Guinness
is strong
ask Mr Bacon
whether he knows what Wondratschek said
about mouths and teeth
Adam put away his kr6tkopis

Wondratschek said
Der Mund ist plözlich
der Zahne überdrüssig

Bacon addressed the beer-mug
I never managed
to paint a smile
I always hoped
I would be able to paint lips
the way Monet painted
sunsets
but I painted
mouths full of cries and teeth

crucifixion? I repeat again
it’s the only painting
I painted drunk
but neither drink nor drugs 
help you to paint
you just become more talkative
even garrulous

goodbye Francis Bacon
I have written a poem about you
I won’t be searching for you any more
end fullstop
wait! there’s still the poem’s title
“Francis Bacon
or
Diego Velázquez
in a dentist’s chair”
not bad eh
none of the Irish
or English critics
or poets
had thought up
such a title
perhaps I shouldn’t have
added such a long poem
to the title
but one gets talkative
even garrulous
over a pint

February 1994 - March 1995