Caravaggio - Ian Lilburne

It’s captivating to watch a character
Lost in an inward moment
Unaware of the watcher and the artist
Immersed in their own drama
Vividly alive
A realization
Like Saint Jerome alone with his pen
Crucifix and skull
Transfixed by a spiritual revelation
Yet mocked by the two attendant angels
He doesn’t even see
Or The Knight of Malta
His chest emblazoned with a silken cross
Its folds shimmering
His eyes alert and averted to a threat
We cannot see and do not pose
His hand casually poised to draw his sword
Should the danger he spies actualize
A knight indeed
Ready to pounce
Too tough to care about the painter
Stealing his essence with a few quick thrusts
Of his brush
A splash of pigment and light

Or is this pose a ruse to catch us off guard
A blink away
His sword at our throat
A deadly “What are you looking at?”

Caravaggio mocks us with the people
He paints into his dramas
The curious onlookers at the dentist’s art
The disciples surrounding the resurrected Christ
Their prurient eyes fascinated by the
Grotesque physicality of Thomas’ finger
Sliding lasciviously along the ravine of skin
Or the attendants at John the Baptist’s beheading
Too enthralled to turn away

He likes severed heads
Caravaggio
A Medusa too
And his own on a tray
Served up in penance
For his assault on good taste