Pablo Otavalo: Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

cutthroat, villain, body

carved in light cut through a valley of darkness

the gods and us and saints

sickly and angry and Christ himself

a body. Vagrant your thoughts

and vagrant your talents, ripe

as the fruit on the table, and caught

about to decay, musicians

and a fly on a melon, a dry flower

and a golden light. Caravaggio

castrated Tomassoni with his sword

before deliberately killing him. Unless

I see the marks of the nails

in his hands, I will not believe it. Dimly

lit rooms, his face disfigured after

the knight he wounded in Malta. A saint

beheaded, he had a fever on the day

he died. Cut through for Tomassoni

in an alley in Naples. The announcement

from Rome is that you died of a fever

and not in an alley. Not for love

~~~~~

Editor’s note: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) was an artist whose paintings have been characterized as combining a realistic depiction of humans with a dramatic use of lighting. His work had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio was the most famous painter in Rome, as well as a brawler who carried a sword through the streets of Rome. On 29 May 1606, Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a gangster from a wealthy family, resulting in Caravaggio fleeing Rome with a death sentence hanging over him. The cause of the fight is unknown, but rumors circulated that the duel stemmed from jealousy over Fillide Melandroni, a well-known Roman prostitute who had modeled for the artist in several important paintings; Tomassoni was her pimp. According to the rumors, Caravaggio castrated Tomassoni with his sword before deliberately killing him, with other versions claiming that Tomassoni’s death had been caused accidentally during the castration. The duel may have had a political dimension, as Tomassoni’s family was notoriously pro-Spanish, whereas Caravaggio was a client of the French ambassador. Caravaggio’s patrons had hitherto been able to shield him from any serious consequences of his frequent duels and brawling, but Tomassoni’s wealthy family was outraged by his death and demanded justice. Caravaggio’s patrons were unable to protect him. Caravaggio was sentenced to beheading for murder, and an open bounty was decreed, enabling anyone who recognized him to carry out the sentence legally. Caravaggio’s paintings began, obsessively, to depict severed heads, often his own, at this time.

Biography adapted from Wikipedia.

Poem copyright 2024 Pablo Otavalo

Pablo Otavalo is from Cuenca, Ecuador, and now lives and writes in Illinois. A recipient of the 2013 and 2014 Illinois Emerging Writers Competition prize, his work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, RHINO Poetry and other publications. He says, “We must find what we revere in each other.”