share


Saint Anthony the Hermit Tortured by Devils

 

Sassetta has him feeling no pain, comfortable even,

Yet stiffly dignified at an odd angle like the statue

Of a fallen tyrant, beaten in proxy by his delirious subjects.

 

His halo falls with him yet retains its rectitude,

Remains a perfect corona for that saintly demeanour.

He knows his martyrdom’s assured, his place in heaven reserved.

 

But the devils are bending and leaping, as much taunters as torturers.

One pulls his cave-dark hair and raises a club to smash the heaven-bound brains

From the skull.  Another, monkey-like, clubs the sacred legs beneath his cloak.

 

A third is poised with gigantic reddened jaws where his genitals should be,

About, it seems, to bite the saint in half.  His back sprouts snakes and wings.

Behind them all, a serene landscape with squat, identical trees, is silent.

 

The devils’ claws grip the earth while the hermit hovers over it,

As if cut out of another painting.  In life he’s already ascending.

I prefer their heat, their human dedication to the job in hand.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

has published poetry, short stories, critical essays and travel writing in magazines in the UK and internationally.  He was runner-up in the Elmet Foundation Ted Hughes Poetry Prize. His work appears on the Poetry Library archive, for which he has made recordings.

READ NEXT

poetry

January 2014

Letters from a Seducer

Hilda Hilst

TR. John Keene

poetry

January 2014

At her death in 2004, Brazilian author Hilda Hilst had received a number of her country’s important literary prizes...

poetry

September 2011

The Cinematographer, a 42-year-old man named Miyagawa, aimed his camera directly at the sun, which at first probably seemed like a bad idea

Michael Earl Craig

poetry

September 2011

Last night Kurosawa’s woodcutter strode through the forest, his axe on his shoulder. Intense sunlight stabbed and sparkled and...

fiction

August 2013

Foxy

Siân Melangell Dafydd

fiction

August 2013

If you don’t want to lose your eyes, grab them by the veins sticking out of their behinds and...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required