Bacon's 'Three Figures'

Those filthy little bastards
wouldn’t let me go. I moulded
them with layer on layer
of thick, sticky paint.
At the start of each day I was near
to vomiting. By lunchtime
pining for a drink. After I set
the brushes aside my lover
opened the wine. He and I
with our Bacchanalia to
deaden the end of each day.
In misery, self-loathing and disgust
I completed my obsessive task.
I at last became a painter,

though I lost enthusiasm
when I decided the Three Figures
were completed. There was nothing
in me left for the cross.
Three Figures, then, without a Crucifixion.
A trio of faceless hominids
               without a prayer.