Dark pigment demonstrates artists skill, illuminating scene,
Lead white, picks out trauma and the cruelty is between.
In subtle darkness Caravaggio adds layers of lust and loathing,
He uses skill his expressions of grief, garbed in religious clothing.

Two inmates watch from prison window, horror in their faces,
Half-hidden, forever in the dark, secured within their places.
I stood before the image, to stare at the bloody signature,
His message held me fast as the gore of tightened ligature.

Dogma subtlety formed by brave hand, true story is concealed,
Master of darkness delivers violence, and the anguish is revealed.
His fiery temper led him here, to escape a murder verdict,
The scene he paints of life itself, this artist was imperfect.

A thuggish brute with flawless vision gives viewers the full story,
He painted symbols, saints and believers, naked in their glory.
Macabre depiction, valued life, slaughtered on the canvas,
To see in his work his history, we judge as he demands us.

Caravaggio as his life, his death became a mystery,
His paintings stand the test of time as do his crimes and history.
Painter’s demise, it was assumed, linked to a lack of self-restraint.
The great man died from lead poison, used in the artist’s paint.