Roger Bacon Irish Artist Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Francis Bacon, Irish artist
Pictures flowed from his brush,
A strange outpouring
Goering and his Lion Cub.
Man with a Monkey.
Man Eating a Leg of Chicken

His father had him horsewhipped by a groom
Finding him dressed in his mother's underwear
Sent him packing, seventeen years old
To the wide world

He drew the odd, the intriguing, the enthralling:
Study of a Baboon
Study of the Sphinx

Religion, pain, death, sin were painted raw
One lover beat him senseless and repeatedly
He was the master of depicting angst,
Pope with Owls
Screaming Pope.Red Pope
Crucifixions, numerous

There are strange bedfellows, in his house of work
Study for Portrait on Folding Bed
Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants
Three Studies of Lucian Freud
Three Studies for Portrait (Mick Jagger)
Study for Portrait, Number IV (After the Life Mask of William Blake)
Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh IV
Three Studies of the Male Back
Study for Crouching Nude

Sometimes, he was a conduit for the thoughts of writers
Triptych inspired by T.S Elliot's Poem Sweeney Agonistes
Triptych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus

Bacon lived life on the edge:
Gambling, drinking, on nodding terms with
Criminals, and those of the fringe of society
Blood on the Pavement
Jet of Water squirting into the eyes oftoday's art critics