by George Held
The tyrant is dead, long live the martyr,
His defiance with noose round neck
Recorded via cell phone
And broadcast round the world
With the taunts of his Shiite lynchers.
Seeing Goya's "Cannibals Preparing Their Victims"
The same day that Saddam hangs,
I marvel at the artist's audacious depiction
Of naked cannibals in a cave
Carrying out their rites:
One crouched, shaft of arm deep in a dead man's
Abdomen, cloven and pink like labia,
Plunging to extract the last entrails
While a second stands stretching,
Like a ballet dancer en pointe, a g-string
Barely covering his genitals, this trio
Of the prostrate, the kneeling, and the upright
Forever artfully fixed while the hanged man
Flickers in low res on monitors worldwide
For an audience magnitudes greater
Than Goya's.
George Held has published widely in the small press, both online and in print. His most recent chapbook is W Is For War (Cervena Barva Press, 2006). Finishing Line Press will publish his collection of poems The Art of Writing and Others in 2007. He and his wife, Cheryl, live in Greenwich Village.