Saturday 25 October 2014

This is the Truth, for Goya


    The poem construct This is the Truth is an imaginary  3-way conversation between two women and an officer of the other side. All words are picture titles and borrowed from Goya's masterpiece The Disasters of War*. The final image (below the poem) is the first image in Goya's book but it is placed last here to show that the cycle of war can only end with the final extinction of humankind, the reason being that truth has died.


Against the common good

The sound and the sick 

Great deeds - against the dead!

Proud monster!

Truth has died


This is the Truth
A play for 3 voices. 

First woman:                                          Second woman:                                       An enemy officer:

With or without reason
The same thing again 
Disasters of war
For infamous gain 
The women give courage
What courage! 
Escape through the flames
All this and more  

Worse is to beg
This is worse

This always happens
The sound and the sick
What good is one cup?

It serves you right 

They do not want to
Nor do these 
Or these
On account of a knife
What more can one do?
Rabble! 
Barbarians!
Bitter presence!
It is what you were born for!

Unhappy mother
Troupe of charlatans!
They avail themselves

There is no one to help them
Treat them! 

Then on to other matters
One cannot look at this
Proud monster! 

What madness!
There is no more time

The same thing elsewhere
It will be the same 

Great deeds - against the dead!
Bury them and keep quiet 
     
This is bad

Why? 

There is something to be gained
Nobody knows why

To the cemetery 
Cartloads to the cemetery 


Truth has died. 


Sad presentiments of what must come to pass

*another Goya posting below this one.


2 comments:

  1. I am sorry but I cant really follow this. I am such a disappointment.

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  2. It's just a matter of having 3 voices in your head. They are colour coded so you know who is speaking. The soldier says "Bury them and keep quiet" which is the clue as to what the two women have witnessed. The bodies are taken by the local people to the graveyard rather than being thrown in a pit of lime. It is of course a made up scenario.

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