Sedia Gestatoria

This poem comes from two sets of notes I made about the pictures below. One set was made in 2008, the other this week. I have always found Francis Bacon’s paintings amazing, powerful. The sedia gestatoria was a throne used to carry the pope through the crowds. A sort of pope-mobile of the past.

Sedia Gestatoria
after two studies of Pope Inncocent X by Francis Bacon

I am God’s scream,
head half-hidden
in the World’s dark.

The gold of my throne
is the food of pain,
the death of life.

See how my frail hands
grip the arms of the chair.
I am the swallower of pain.

Grief-dribble stains the silk,
purpled in death, of my robe.
I am the World’s scream.