Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Gernika Remembered (Poem)

Gernika Remembered

Surrealists did not dream the Condor Legion
    gruffly rumbling through a cloudless April
        afternoon. It was 4:30 when the humming

tongues in market stalls wagged numbed amid showers
    of sunflowers and smoke, the nerve-slashing flash
        not Halley's tail cutting its arc through a phantom

sky but Gernika blanket-bombed and blazing below Lumo,
    a horse run through with lance, a grit of red laid down
        on blistered Basque pavement. Picasso, the unmasked

and charging bull, sketched what Spain could not long view,
    his jumble of brushes manic to paint the mad man's vision
        vying with outstretched hands, flayed fingers, in-turned palms.

© 2012 Maureen E. Doallas

9 comments:

Brian Miller said...

i imagine quite the fear when you heard their engines wondering who they would be terrorizing today...

Joan Barrett Roberts said...

A powerful writing Maureen!
War torn, held in grief, the sights and sounds of death --

The last lines --
"to paint the mad man's vision
vying with outstretched hands, flayed fingers, in-turned palms."
very powerful sight of such anguish!

And how are we to paint these images?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful and vivid recreation of scene and painting. k.

Jenne' R. Andrews said...

Incredible intensity in this poem, Maureen-- your language, so consonant-rich, conveys sharp edges, severings, hemmorhages-- I love these lines:

"..not Halley's tail cutting its arc through a phantom

sky but Gernika blanket-bombed and blazing below Lumo,
a horse run through with lance, a grit of red laid down
on blistered Basque pavement."

oh that grit of red... another keeper for the upcoming collection...xxxj

Beachanny said...

Brilliant poem, Maureen - words that convey the power of that master work. You capture the feelings that dwarfs one who views it. Very fine work here, indeed!

chazinator said...

What a powerful re-creation of the painting that turned horror and terror into one of the great paintings. I really like the way that you embed the painting in its historical reality, calling to life the moments of the painting as only poetry can do.

Britton Minor said...

Beautifully written, a tribute to that which no one should have to experience.

Picasso's "Guernica" is beautiful and horrific at once.

Tracey said...

Brilliant! Bravo!

lucychili said...

and which communities feel these things now. and who sends the bombs.