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
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
i imagine quite the fear when you heard their engines wondering who they would be terrorizing today...
Beautiful and vivid recreation of scene and painting. k.
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
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!
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.
Beautifully written, a tribute to that which no one should have to experience.
Picasso's "Guernica" is beautiful and horrific at once.
Brilliant! Bravo!
and which communities feel these things now. and who sends the bombs.
Post a Comment