Warped Canvas

El Toro, grotesque beauty,

so easily erased to mollify fallacious bloodlust.

Francis Bacon, hedonistic impressionist,

painted good-looking men;

matadorial studies of male on male action

transferred to the sordid dousing of your innocent flame.

Ceremonial peacock, zoning on his prey,

curious, post-pubescent in his hip-thrusting ritual.

His tortured plaything, heaving, almost spent,

unaware of the impending onslaught strutting two feet away,

pausing, awaiting that sadistic nod from sweaty Mammon.

Nero, you never went away.

El Toro, blazing heart, they wait to see you

pierced with their slender, penile rapier.

Their special-bred boy.

What if you refuse? 

Deny them their theatre?

Turn their blood-smeared table over?

Be sure. 

Be thorough. 

Use that savage heart they would deflate of its burning glory.

Use your virgin impaler, your ivory phallus.

Let them balk to taste the untainted side of

Bacon’s warped canvas.

Destroy the sabre-clad man-child

and live to tell your tale.

El Toro, innocent beauty, live…

for us.