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Pedro Tejada Apr 2010
I was once God's Picasso painting
(the Guernica era).
Chuck Jones' illustration
of the tortured artist,
laid out like Wile E. Coyote
on a bed of scalding rocks
and a white flag screaming "SURRENDER"
clenched with both palms.

If it were feasible,
I'd have dove head first
into the smoky center of the sun
if it meant my audience understood
the shrieking woes I had to bellow through
to reach their overwhelmed palates.

But Tragedy is the sitcom foil
that has long outstayed its menopausal welcome,
and I would much prefer a haunting.

To Hell with those
who repulse the flies with
the vinegar of exploitation,
gawking as their spit seeps
through seven layers of collected scars,
who ventilate the wrists
to keep the audience comfortable.

Real aesthetic power
comes from a shower
of light hail on the spine,
the moments a ghostly hand
****** you on the finger
with quietly hidden truths
always whispered from a field away.

It's far more bracing,
the lump in the throat,
not the electrical gasp of shock.

It's a far greater sign
of a forthcoming apocalypse,
the angel weeping in pain,
not the footsteps
of the wailing banshee.

The wisp
over the wallop.
John F McCullagh Jan 2015
I have observed that history rhymes,
with no exact repeats each time.
As foreign nationals flock to fight
For ISIS and the Caliphate.
It seems I’ve heard this tune before
When socialists fought in the
Spanish war.
That dress rehearsal for World War Two
That played out on the Iberian plains.
Then Communists and Fascists fought
and idealists were slaughtered for their dreams.
Now in the village of Kobane
Its U.S. drones, not **** Planes,
The Kurds expel the men in black
Who leave behind their friends remains.
Foreign fighters by the score
won’t need their passports anymore.
They fought against America,
Is this a second Guernica?
Picasso immortalized the battle of Guernica which took place on 04/26/1937 during the Spanish Civil War.
The screaming
children of Gaza
torment the sleep
of a troubled world,
and remain a real-time
unending nightmare;
anointing The Levant’s
fevered brow
with a diadem of
incessant grief.

Gaza is a burning
ankh that sears the
madness of sorrow
upon Egypt’s skull.

Gaza,
an unblinking
third eye
of shame,
peers into
Lower Egypt’s
closed window
ever reproaching
it’s turbulent
conscience;
chiding fellow
Muslims with
the ugly memory
of abject affliction,
the endless images
of a living Guernica
suspended in the hell
of indefinite imprisonment
all Palestinians are forced
to suffer.

As Zionists ***** the
steep walls of Apartheid to
extend its occupation
of Palestine, it
condemns the youth
of Gaza to a life of
incarceration with no
possibility of parole;
hardening the hearts
and steeling the resolve
of a new generation of
militants to demolish the
walls and the wardens
that imprison them.

The Zionist jailers
bestow upon
Ishmael’s Children
phylacteries of shame,
wearing the rolled
prayers of wailing pain
scribed with bits of
dust from the
the broken walls of
demolished buildings
and desolate homes
beyond habitation,
now housing grief
of trampled souls,
forcing recitations
of deliverance
to Allah while
davening an
incessant drone
of anguish at
the Wailing Wall
of Resentment;
decrying the
blood lust of
undying acrimony,
victimization and
the slaughter of
innocents, carried on
with the imperial license
of state sanctioned impunity.


Father Ibrahim's
feuding children may
share a sacred paternity
but remain the
divided brothers
of different mothers;
stoking a sibling rivalry
more bitter then
Cain and Abel.

Our anguish
never dissipates,
the gnawing
impulse of empathy
to assist the distressed
of Gaza is dashed
by omnipotent
powers recusing
the ability to act.

Sympathy is
embargoed
in the black
obfuscation
of religious
partisanship
while timely
assistance
to aid the
distressed
lie netted in
blockades of
realpolitik
affinities.

Gaza, where
Hashim is granted
his eternal rest,
restlessly inhabits
his unknown grave
from the destitution of
his profaned homeland.

Ghazzat,  “the stronghold”
countlessly conquered,
falling to Roman Emperors,
Lionhearted Crusaders
Ottoman Caliphates,
and British Mandates;
slipping from Egypt’s
geopolitical grasp as
as a casualty of
The Six Day War.

Gaza is now a stronghold of
resent and desperation for a
desperate conquered people.

Ghazzat, the prized city of
the western Mediterranean,
a four star Phoenician port of
caravansaries now unable
to trade with any partners
due to ungodly blockades.

Gaza, has grown wholly
dependent on the largess
of UN aid and meager
subsistence portions
doled out by well
meaning NGO’s.

Gaza, the foot stool of
the Levant and surely
the pathway Father
Ibrahim, Jacob,
Joseph and Jeremiah
traveled to escape
Canaan's famine;
finding at the close
of their sojourn
a table set with the
plenteous bounty
the Blue Nile
unconditionally offered;
the veritable feast
of abundance,
the generous yields
of the blessed delta
that sustained the
Prophets of Judah
and a thousand
generations of the
Nile’s Children.

Gaza, the Achilles
heal of Middle East
peace, land of the
Canaanites, Philistines
and Old Testament
heroes.

Gaza, a fortress for
Philistines who
imprisoned the storied
Sampson, revered for
breaking the chains of
imprisonment and righteously
destroying a pagan temple
in a suicidal act of heroism.

Gaza, where the myths and
legends of rapacious
holy crusaders captured
the western imagination
with the chivalrous gallantry
of religious warfare and
valiant last stands of
Templar Knights employing
the tactical imperatives
of terrorism in service to their
higher God.

Gaza, an oasis
by the sea now
lies dry and brittle
as the precious Hebron
waters of Wadi Ghazza
are diverted to serve
the agriculture of
Judah; condemning
a dehydrated Gaza
panting of thirst
to an imposed drought
and a war of
self preservation
to remove
the dammed rivers
of justice controlled
by intractable powers
laying upstream beyond
Gaza’s mean borders.

The Qassams
lunched by Hamas
are desperate
expressions of
exasperated people,
eager to call
world attention
to the growing
insufferable plight
of a people living
in a perpetual
state of siege.

Its a modern day
David slinging rocks
against an armor
clad Goliath.

Each Katusha
serves as
a justification
for Zionist
intransigence
and condemns
any possibility
for peaceful
coexistence
of a Two State
Solution.

The pointless attacks
invite massive
disproportionate
retaliation and succeed
in prolonging and
increasing the
measure of Gaza’s
agony.

The mystic grace,
the divine power
of satyagraha
-a non-violent
response to the
cruel enforcement of
Apartheid- is Allah’s
way to secure the
moral high-ground
and the surest way
for Palestinians to
expose it’s unholy
adversaries innate
contempt for civil rights
and a refusal to
recognized the
shared humanity of
all of Father Ibrahim’s
wayward progeny and
recalcitrant prodigal sons.

Mubarak’s fall
has allowed the
Rafah Gate
to swing open again.

The concertina
wire that separates
Gaza and Egypt
has been removed.

The prisoners
of Gaza have
an open portal
of freedom.

It is a Day of
Jubilee, a day
of pardon for
for the inmates
of prisons built
for victims.  

It is a day of
possibility for peace.  

It is a day to declare an
Exodus from the land
of bitterness.

Humanity is
offered the hope
of escape from
the prisons of
acrimony, to
freely move across
the staid borders
of intractability
and exclusion.

The hearts and
minds of Palestinians
and Egyptians
are free to connect
and unite once again.

Liberation is
possible only
when we uphold
and honor the
affirmation
of all humanity.

Music Video:

Silk Road
We Will Not Go Down

Oakland
2/9/12
jbm
a poem from the epilogue section of Tahrir Square Voices
navigator’s balcony cocktail hour
rocket orbit ocean liner rising
clenched no teeth no guernica no bam bam bam
correspondent notary republic
address book dial figure 8
charred with a thousand jigsaw pieces
false as a beach chiaroscuro black
on black graveyard womb naked milk glass lit
footprint tourism by candlelight and flare
vaccination fatigue puke fingernail fish
moving a bandaged echo **** him **** her
familiar bell music **** them both **** them all
stretched shirtsleeves spanish toffee slashed tires
(failure as a painter he shaved his wife’s fur coat)
bust your ***** Barcelona red alert
knock-kneed broken squeezebox no hands
standing room only ladies first (please)
unbuttoned interrogation coffee rolls (stop)
marine’s vegetation (stop) early morning tea (stop)
armless menus (stop) pink cathedral fingers (stop)

and (begin again) move

we move

moving inside an eye this eye
that advances step
by step
spysgrandson Nov 2015
brushstrokes, some broad,  
some as narrow as one fine hair,  
are often red  

scarlet and scattered
across the canvas, splattered
against a crumbling wall, where,
for no rhyme or reason, the artist
may place a wilted wreath of flowers,
pallid, yellow
      
horses and people, babes
and the ancient not spared  
their share of the crimson cream  
the painter heaped munificently
on their mangled remains

Paris, Beirut, Yola yet to be painted
but there is still time: in its abundance
someone else will need only lift a hand  
to spill the ubiquitous blood      

our palettes do own other hues
black for charred crosses, white,
the lightning streaked screaming sky
but  none so plentiful as the red  
none so plentiful as the red
Ugo Jul 2012
The beauty of comatose can only be seen through
the eyes of a wizard in a blizzard
strutting in garlic slippers,

or Christ with knees bent at the tabernacle
peeling bananas and kicking prayers
farther than eternity with each gapping second,

or like Basquiat slumped back to the wall,
with ounces of speedball dancing through his veins,
eating 80’s free-based fried chicken *******  

as his eyelids paints beautiful nightmares of lemon flowers
and Bacchus bacon over a glycopyrrolate desert
of flagrant cuckold buffoonery.

Or like leprechauns burning chocolate ******* candles
on the mantle of Zion, sipping oatmeal sprinkled
with Staten Island malt liquor bacon.

or like Tupac reading the thoughts of Mother Shipton
through the daze of California cannabis
and hearing the ominous voice of Plutarch sing death assignments

from heaven to Assassins on horsebacks goggling ***** water
to wet the dry bones of their throats as they prepare to fulfill
the gospel of self-fulfilling prophecies of being fell by ***** bullets.

Or like sophisticated wallets of spice and kitchen characters in a bald head
cooking chemical kisses and 18 February nights under Moloch’s skin,
where constitutions are written in charcoal diaries with Egyptian ciphers and razors.

“I had rain sowed into the pockets of my sneakers and composed 1310 eulogies
at the basement of king David’s tower,” said the Kraftwerkian caricature,
as he dangles cigarettes in remembrance of Klaus Nomi and philosophizes on the proliferation
of poetic vandalism at urinals where modernism failed under the phosphorescence of coloration at the avenue of no trees where Picasso's "Guernica" **** Lies All.
http://www.amazon.com/OLAF-Nothing-Above-Fiction-ebook/dp/B009XZ9OVY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid;=1353822133&sr;=8-1&keywords;=olaf+last+king+of+nothing
Kayla Knight Oct 2010
If I were to write a poem about you,
my haunted Spanish artista,
I wonder what it would look like.

Can words on a paper
simple lines and colorless letters
sum up what I feel when
I see you fears?

The war. A war I cannot imagine,
young and innocent as I am.

Would the words be jarring,
a handful of stinging bullets,
LOUD and TOXIC,
bombs and sirens and screams?

Would they be sloooow and sluuured,
blood seeping into the streets,
or the last rattling breath
of a dying man?

Or would they be quiet?
The quiet would be worst, I think
an aftershock of loss and pain,
salty tears whispering down
the cheeks of mothers holding still children,
prayers murmured into the night.

Mi Dios
Ayudame
*Por favor
© 2010 by Kayla Knight
Rick Fister May 2014
"...If I could I would shrink myself and sink through your skin to your blood cells and remove whatever makes you hurt , but I am too weak to be your cure...."



written by LACEY, JESSE / ACCARDI, VINCENT
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
From the album 'Deja Entendu'
r Apr 2014
Led down from the tower
Head high and hands bound
Blindfold declined against the wall
Black square pinned to his heart
Eyes afire and shining proud
He sang...

He sang of Caruso, Townes Van Zandt
Pavarotti, Bocelli, Mercury,
Carreras, he sang of Antoine,
Of Sinatra, Lennon, Morrison, Redding
He sang and songbirds paused in flight
He sang like them all

He sang a song of himself
Of leaves of grass, of second comings
Of Byron, and Bharti, and Cummings
He sang of Neruda, and Plath, Tagore
Dickinson, Kamala Das and Naidu
Oh, he sang of them all

He sang of art and beauty
Of Mona Lisa and starry nights
Girls in green dresses and pearls
He sang of Van Gogh, of Picasso
Of Rembrandt, da Vinci
He sang of Michelangelo

He sang of sadness, pain
He sang of My Lai, Sand Creek
Of Guernica and Krystallnacht
He cried and sang of Wounded Knee
Of Katyn Forest, Sabra and Shatila
Oh, he wept as he sang

He sang of history and wonders
He sang of Olduvai and pyramids
Machu Picchu, Tikal, and Angkor Wat
He sang of a great wall, the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge, Easter Isle, Mesa Verde
His song took us to them all

He sang of courage
A song of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg
Of the Alamo, Normandy, Stalingrad
Of Lincoln, Guevara and Dr. King
He sang of Bolivar, Bhutto, Ghandi
He shamed us with their song

He sang his song...
As women sighed and peasants cried
He  sang until the rifles fired, he died
Songbirds fell from the sky
Soldiers broke their guns on stones
And marched into the deep blue sea.

r ~ 4/12/14
jeffrey robin Mar 2013
So ****** says to me:
"It's like Dylan's  song
when I paint my masterpiece

See PICASSO paints guernica
But I do ww 2"

I sez "but Adolf!
Guernica was in response to a great destruction !
In itself,it had great meaning and import!"

He sez:
"Oh fer Christ sake!
Look at SHAKESPEARE!
All the violence
Pure art ******* is all!"
---
Then Bill chimed in and said:
"Look, if you're too stupid to see the politics in my work that's your fault!
Death and destruction-- that was your game!"
--
ADOLF
He looked stunned:

" I don't think either of you understand what was going on

I DONT THINK YOU UNDERSTAND WHATS GOING ON NOW!
.
If fact
I didn't understand it then
I over reacted!

Same as people are over re acting in today's world!
Sure I was mad? crazy mad!
What do you want?
An apology?
.
Are you gonna give one when what's happening now
Becomes clear?
Are you gonna come clean?"
--------

The 3 of us just sat there stunned

Waiting

For someone

To do or say something

ANYTHING!
---

Because
Absolutely
Nothing
Has change

Since then
Til now
  .:
And for that

THERE'S PLENTY  OF SHAME TO GO AROUND!!
The Mellon Oct 2018
People are beautiful,

However.

Pretty people please a perverted industry,
Of powerful men
Preferring **** to passion to progress,

Preferring ******* productions over
#metoo protests
As mr. president likes to grab 'em by the p..

Provoking pain-passing-fists
Pulsating pro-rights protests,
Journalists plee for coverage praying no one pulls a
Knife and produces plumes of blood from the press
All while
Young picassos paint Guernica in America.

A broken people of a nation perpatrating hate-

Where red plus blue can only make purple-
But dark blue and dark red parish and persecuted plee for due process?

Plain racism profoundly perpatrates power and policy because polititions prefer power over people!

A parchment in hand is worth two poor people on the shores of Philippine islands passing pork bones around on plastic forks polluteing ashore to portion a pathetic excuse for super.

Admittedly population proceeding proper capacity depleting the recourse needed per proper production for product based programs-
-tax breaks produce proper rich persons-
Poor penny pedalers paddle street corners prostituting their dinner from someone's porch steps.

Pathetic "Presidential" GOPs
Catapaulting propaganda past press outlets producing media paranoia.

Piranhas perhaps are the least problematic politition ashore.
Petulance is peace right?

Perhaps Palestinian misplacement and
Poor communication produce
A melting *** per pound of C 4
Blasting
Terrarist propaganda pasted
On highways toting plywood posters
Providing hate.

Parasitic politics polluting a proud nation
Patrolled by plastic islands and pay-per-view gun violence.
Police brutality providing protection for
Parkland shooting,
The NRA having premeditated lawsuits against progress

Programs protecting people getting
Passed-

-Sorry blocked,

By political party(s)
Preferring deep pockets to
Public safety

Appocoliptic predictions
Loom in present day policy
As unreputable "science" papers
Preach lies to gospel preachers

Perhaps human problems
Produce paper cuts
Peeling skin to skin
For radical apologies to bleed out,

Perhaps bleeding pools
Poor out filling
Evaporated paradise
With EPA Pruit's preference of
Proper science.

Perhaps penguins and polar bears
Produced proper plans:

Die off before the planet plummets per plume cloud of nuclear power.
Or more likely planetary pestilence
For people.
Inspired by Harry Bakers poem "Paper People"
Ii
Hombre de Extremadura,
oigo bajo tu pie el humo del lobo,
el humo de la especie,
el humo del niño,
el humo solitario de dos trigos,
el humo de Ginebra, el humo de Roma, el humo de Berlín
y el de París y el humo de tu apéndice penoso
y el humo que, al fin, sale del futuro:
¡Oh vida! ¡oh tierra! ¡oh España!
¡Onzas de sangre,
metros de sangre, líquidos de sangre,
sangre a caballo, a pie, mural, sin diámetro,
sangre de cuatro en cuatro, sangre de agua
y sangre muerta de la sangre viva!

Estremeño, ¡oh, no ser aún ese hombre
por el que te mató la vida y te parió la muerte
y quedarse tan solo a verte así, desde este lobo,
cómo sigues arando en nuestros pechos!
¡Estremeño, conoces
el secreto en dos voces, popular y táctil,
del cereal: que nada vale tánto
como una gran raíz en trance de otra!
¡Estremeño acodado, representando al alma en su retiro,
acodado a mirar
el caber de una vida en una muerte!
¡Estremeño, y no haber tierra que hubiere
el peso de tu arado, ni más mundo
que el color de tu yugo entre dos épocas; no haber
el orden de tus póstumos ganados!
¡Estremeño, dejásteme
verte desde este lobo, padecer,
pelear por todos y pelear
para que el individuo sea un hombre,
para que los señores sean hombres,
para que todo el mundo sea un hombre, y para
que hasta los animales sean hombres,
el caballo, un hombre,
el reptil, un hombre,
el buitre, un hombre honesto,
la mosca, un hombre, y el olivo, un hombre
y hasta el ribazo, un hombre
y el mismo cielo, todo un hombrecito!

Luego, retrocediendo desde Talavera,
en grupos de a uno, armados de hambre, en masas de a uno,
armados de pecho hasta la frente,
sin aviones, sin guerra, sin rencor,
el perder a la espalda
y el ganar
más abajo del plomo, heridos mortalmente de honor,
locos de polvo, el brazo a pie,
amando por las malas,
ganando en español toda la tierra,
retroceder aún, ¡y no saber
dónde poner su España,
dónde ocultar su beso de orbe,
dónde plantar su olivo de bolsillo!

Mas desde aquí, más tarde,
desde el punto de vista de esta tierra,
desde el duelo al que fluye el bien satánico,
se ve la gran batalla de Guernica.
¡Lid a priori, fuera de la cuenta,
lid en paz, lid de las almas débiles
contra los cuerpos débiles, lid en que el niño pega,
sin que le diga nadie que pegara,
bajo su atroz diptongo
y bajo su habilísimo pañal,
y en que la madre pega con su grito, con el dorso de una lágrima
y en que el enfermo pega con su mal, con su pastilla y su hijo
y en que el anciano pega
con sus canas, sus siglos y su palo
y en que pega el presbítero con dios!
¡Tácitos defensores de Guernica!
¡oh débiles! ¡oh suaves ofendidos,
que os eleváis, crecéis,
y llenáis de poderosos débiles el mundo!

En Madrid, en Bilbao, en Santander,
los cementerios fueron bombardeados,
y los muertos inmortales,
de vigilantes huesos y hombro eterno, de las tumbas,
los muertos inmortales, de sentir, de ver, de oír
tan bajo el mal, tan muertos a los viles agresores,
reanudaron entonces sus penas inconclusas,
acabaron de llorar, acabaron
de esperar, acabaron
de sufrir, acabaron de vivir,
acabaron, en fin, de ser mortales!

¡Y la pólvora fue, de pronto, nada,
cruzándose los signos y los sellos,
y a la explosión salióle al paso un paso,
y al vuelo a cuatro patas, otro paso
y al cielo apocalíptico, otro paso
a los siete metales, la unidad,
sencilla, justa, colectiva, eterna!

¡Málaga sin padre ni madre,
ni piedrecilla, ni horno, ni perro blanco!
¡Málaga sin defensa, donde nació mi muerte dando
pasos
y murió de pasión mi nacimiento
¡Málaga caminando tras de tus pies, en éxodo,
bajo el mal, bajo la cobardía, bajo la historia cóncava,
indecible,
con la yema en tu mano: tierra orgánica!
y la clara en la ***** del cabello: todo el caos
¡Málaga huyendo
de padre a padre, familiar, de tu hijo a tu hijo,
a lo largo del mar que huye del mar,
a través del metal que huye del plomo,
al ras del suelo que huye de la tierra
y a las órdenes ¡ay!
de la profundidad que te quería!
¡Málaga a golpes, a fatídico coágulo, a bandidos, a infiernazos,
a cielazos,
andando sobre duro vino, en multitud,
sobre la espuma lila, de uno en uno,
sobre huracán estático y más lila,
y al compás de las cuatro órbitas que aman
y de las dos costillas que se matan
¡Málaga de mi sangre diminuta
y mi coloración a gran distancia,
la vida sigue con tambor a tus honores alazanes,
con cohetes, a tus niños eternos
y con silencio a tu último tambor,
con nada, a tu alma,
y con más nada, a tu esternón genial!
¡Málaga, no te vayas con tu nombre!
¡Que si te vas,
te vas
toda, hacia ti, infinitamente toda en son total,
concorde con tu tamaño fijo en que me aloco,
con tu suela feraz y su agujero
y tu navaja antigua atada a tu hoz enferma
y tu madero atado a un martillo!
¡Málaga literal y malagüeña,
huyendo a Egipto, puesto que estás clavada,
alargando en sufrimiento idéntico tu danza,
resolviéndose en ti el volumen de la esfera,
perdiendo tu botijo, tus cánticos, huyendo
con tu España exterior y tu orbe innato!
¡Málaga por derecho propio
y en el jardín biológico, más Málaga!
¡Málaga en virtud
del camino, en atención al lobo que te sigue
y en razón del lobezno que te espera!
¡Málaga, que estoy llorando!
¡Málaga, que lloro y lloro!
shanika yrs Mar 2020
Once I met Picasso -
He told me why he kept us all in cubes
Everything within just an instant
Let me rest on her thereafter -
Such a great man
Today I wanted to fly
**** myself -
Man to Him thereafter
Wish I was not born into this
Guernica is still the real
© shanikayrs
Paul d'Aubin Mar 2017
« Des Hommes prophétiques en face de leurs époques face à la souffrance causée par les périodes de réaction et de reflux »

(Relation d’une conférence donnée le 13 janvier 1940 à Toulouse par Silvio Trentin sur le principal Poète romantique Italien Giacomo Leopardi)

Prélude à une commémoration

C'est à la bibliothèque interuniversitaire de l’Université de Toulouse-Capitole alors que je me plongeais avec ferveur dans la lecture des ouvrages sur les « fuorusciti » (appellation donnée aux exilés politiques Italiens) que je découvris un opuscule de 118 pages, issue d'une conférence prononcée à Toulouse, le 13 janvier 1940 devant le « Cercle des intellectuels Républicains espagnols » par Silvio Trentin. Cette conférence fut prononcée avec la gorge nouée, devant un public d'intellectuels espagnols et catalans, la plupart exilés depuis 1939, et quelques-uns de leurs amis toulousains non mobilisés.
L'intense gravité du moment ne les empêchait pas de partager une ferveur commune ce haut moment de culture la culture Européenne intitulée par Silvio Trentin : « D’un poète qui nous permettra de retrouver l'Italie Giacomo Leopardi »
L'émotion fut grande pour moi car cet ouvrage me parut comme le frêle esquif rescapé d'un temps de défaites, de souffrances, rendu perceptible par le crépitement des balles de mitrailleuses, des explosions d’obus s'abattant sur des soldats républicains écrasés par la supériorité des armes et condamnés à la défaite par le mol et lâche abandon des diplomaties. Silvio Trentin avait gravé dans sa mémoire des images récentes qui n'avaient rien à envier aux tableaux grimaçants de nouveaux Goya. Il avait tant vu d'images d'avions larguant leurs bombes sur les populations terrifiées et embraser les charniers de Guernica. Il venait de voir passer les longues files de civils, toujours harassés, souvent blessés, emportant leurs rares biens ainsi que les soldats vaincus mais fiers de «la Retirada ». Il venait de visiter ces soldats dont parmi eux bon nombre de ses amis de combat, parqués sommairement dans des camps d'infortune.
Ces Catalans et Espagnols, qui s'étaient battus jusqu'au bout des privations et des souffrances endurées, étaient comme écrasés par le sentiment d'avoir été laissés presque seuls à lutter contre les fascismes, unis et comme pétrifiés par un destin d'injustice et d'amertume.
Mais ces premiers déchainements impunis d'injustices et de violences avaient comme ouverts la porte aux «trois furies» de la mythologie grecque et une semaine exactement après la conclusion du pacte de non-agression germano-soviétique, signé le 23 août 1939, par Molotov et Ribbentrop, les troupes allemandes se jetaient, dès le 1er septembre, sur la Pologne qu'elles écrasaient sous le nombre des stukas et des chars, en raison ce que le Général de Gaulle nomma ultérieurement « une force mécanique supérieure».
Une armée héroïque, mais bien moins puissante, était défaite. Et il ne nous en reste en guise de témoignage dérisoire que les images du cinéaste Andrei Wajda, nous montrant de jeunes cavaliers munis de lances se rendant au combat, à cheval, à la fin de cet été 1939, images d'une fallacieuse et vénéneuse beauté. Staline rendu avide par ce festin de peuples attaqua la Finlande, un mois après, le 30 septembre 1940, après s'être partagé, avec l'Allemagne hitlérienne, une partie de la Pologne. Depuis lors la « drôle de guerre » semblait en suspension, attendant pétrifiée dans rien faire les actes suivants de la tragédie européenne.

- Qu'est ce qui pouvait amener Silvio Trentin en ces jours de tragédie, à sacrifier à l'exercice d'une conférence donnée sur un poète italien né en 1798, plus d'un siècle avant ce nouvel embrasement de l'Europe qui mourut, si jeune, à trente-neuf ans ?
- Comment se fait-il que le juriste antifasciste exilé et le libraire militant devenu toulousain d'adoption, plus habitué à porter son éloquence reconnue dans les meetings organisés à Toulouse en soutien au Front à s'exprimer devant un cercle prestigieux de lettrés, comme pour magnifier la poésie même parmi ses sœurs et frères d'armes et de malheurs partagés ?
I °) L’opposition de tempéraments de Silvio Trentin et Giacomo Leopardi
L'intérêt porté par Silvio Trentin aux textes de Percy Shelley et au geste héroïco-romantique du poète Lauro de Bosis qui dépeignit dans son dernier texte le choix de sa mort héroïque pourrait nous laisser penser que le choix, en 1940, de Giacomo Leopardi comme sujet de médiation, s'inscrivait aussi dans une filiation romantique. Certes il y a bien entre ces deux personnalités si différentes que sont Giacomo Leopardi et Silvio Trentin une même imprégnation romantique. Le critique littéraire hors pair que fut Sainte-Beuve ne s'y est pourtant pas trompé. Dans l'un des premiers portraits faits en France de Leopardi, en 1844, dans la ***** des deux Mondes, Sainte-Beuve considère comme Leopardi comme un « Ancien » : (...) Brutus comme le dernier des anciens, mais c'est bien lui qui l'est. Il est triste comme un Ancien venu trop **** (...) Leopardi était né pour être positivement un Ancien, un homme de la Grèce héroïque ou de la Rome libre. »
Giacomo Leopardi vit au moment du plein essor du romantisme qui apparaît comme une réaction contre le formalisme de la pâle copie de l'Antique, de la sécheresse de la seule raison et de l'occultation de la sensibilité frémissante de la nature et des êtres. Mais s'il partage pleinement les obsessions des écrivains et poètes contemporains romantiques pour les héros solitaires, les lieux déserts, les femmes inaccessibles et la mort, Leopardi, rejette l'idée du salut par la religion et tout ce qui lui apparaît comme lié à l'esprit de réaction en se plaignant amèrement du caractère étroitement provincial et borné de ce qu'il nomme « l’aborrito e inabitabile Recanati ». En fait, la synthèse de Giacomo Leopardi est bien différente des conceptions d'un moyen âge idéalisé des romantiques. Elle s'efforce de dépasser le simple rationalisme à l'optimisme naïf, mais ne renie jamais l'aspiration aux « Lumières » qui correspond pour lui à sa passion tumultueuse pour les sciences. Il s'efforce, toutefois, comme par deux ponts dressés au travers de l'abime qui séparent les cultures et les passions de siècles si différents, de relier les idéaux des Antiques que sont le courage civique et la vertu avec les feux de la connaissance que viennent d'attiser les encyclopédistes. A cet effort de confluence des vertus des langues antiques et des sciences nouvelles se mêle une recherche constante de la lucidité qui le tient toujours comme oscillant sur les chemins escarpés de désillusions et aussi du rejet des espoirs fallacieux dans de nouvelles espérances d'un salut terrestre.
De même Silvio Trentin, de par sa haute formation juridique et son engagement constant dans les tragédies et péripéties quotidienne du militantisme, est **** du secours de la religion et de toute forme d'idéalisation du passé. Silvio Trentin reste pleinement un homme de progrès et d'idéal socialiste fortement teinté d'esprit libertaire pris à revers par la barbarie d'un siècle qui s'ouvre par la première guerre mondiale et la lutte inexpiable engagée entre la réaction des fascismes contre l'esprit des Lumières.
Mais, au-delà d'un parcours de vie très éloigné et d'un pessimisme historique premier et presque fondateur chez Leopardi qui l'oppose à l'obstination civique et démocratique de Silvio Trentin qui va jusqu'à prôner une utopie sociétale fondée sur l'autonomie, deux sentiments forts et des aspirations communes les font se rejoindre.

II °) Le même partage des désillusions et de la douleur :
Ce qui relie les existences si différentes de Giacomo Leopardi et de Silvio Trentin c'est une même expérience existentielle de la désillusion et de la douleur. Elle plonge ses racines chez Giacomo Leopardi dans une vie tronquée et comme recroquevillée par la maladie et un sentiment d'enfermement. Chez Silvio Trentin, c'est l'expérience historique même de la première moitié du vingtième siècle dont il est un des acteurs engagés qui provoque, non pas la désillusion, mais le constat lucide d'un terrible reflux historique qui culmine jusqu'à la chute de Mussolini et d'Hilter. A partir de retour dans sa patrie, le 4 septembre 1943, Silvio Trentin débute une période de cinq jours de vie intense et fiévreuse emplie de liberté et de bonheur, avant de devoir replonger dans la clandestinité, en raison de la prise de contrôle du Nord et du centre de l'Italie par l'armée allemande et ses alliés fascistes. Bien entendu il n'y a rien de comparable en horreur entre le sentiment d'un reflux des illusions causé par l'échec historique de la Révolution française et de son héritier infidèle l'Empire et le climat de réaction qui suit le congrès de Vienne et la violence implacable qui se déchaine en Europe en réaction à la tragédie de la première mondiale et à la Révolution bolchevique.


III °) Le partage de la souffrance par deux Esprits dissemblables :
Silvio Trentin retrace bien le climat commun des deux périodes : « Son œuvre se situe bien (...) dans cette Europe de la deuxième décade du XIXe siècle qui voit s'éteindre les dernières flammèches de la Grand Révolution et s'écrouler, dans un fracas de ruines, la folle aventure tentée par Bonaparte et se dresser impitoyablement sur son corps, à l'aide des baïonnettes et des potences, les solides piliers que la Sainte Alliance vient d'établir à Vienne. »
C'est donc durant deux périodes de reflux qu'ont vécu Giacomo Leopardi et Silvio Trentin avec pour effet d'entrainer la diffusion d'un grand pessimisme historique surtout parmi celles et ceux dont le tempérament et le métier est de penser et de décrire leur époque. Silvio Trentin a vu démocratie être progressivement étouffée, de 1922 à 1924, puis à partir de 1926, être brutalement écrasée en Italie. En 1933, il assisté à l'accession au gouvernement d'****** et à l'installation rapide d'un pouvoir impitoyable ouvrant des camps de concentration pour ses opposants et mettant en œuvre un antisémitisme d'Etat qui va basculer dans l'horreur. Il a personnellement observé, puis secouru, les républicains espagnols et catalans si peu aidés qu'ils ont fini par ployer sous les armes des dictatures fascistes, lesquelles ne ménagèrent jamais leurs appuis, argent, et armes et à leur allié Franco et à la « vieille Espagne ». Il a dû assurer personnellement la pénible tâche d'honorer ses amis tués, comme l'avocat républicain, Mario Angeloni, le socialiste Fernando de Rosa, son camarade de « Giustizia e Libertà », Libero Battistelli. Il a assisté à l'assassinat en France même de l'économiste Carlo Rosselli qui était son ami et qu'il estimait entre tous.

IV °) Sur le caractère de refuge ultime de la Poésie :
Silvio Trentin laisse percer la sensibilité et l'esprit d'un être sensible face aux inévitables limites des arts et techniques mises au service de l'émancipation humaine. A chaque époque pèsent sur les êtres humains les plus généreux les limites inévitables de toute création bridée par les préjugés, les égoïsmes et les peurs. Alors la poésie vient offrir à celles et ceux qui en souffrent le plus, une consolation et leur offre un univers largement ouvert à la magie créatrice des mots ou il n'est d'autres bornes que celles de la liberté et la créativité. C'est ce qui nous permet de comprendre qu'au temps où l'Espagne brulait et ou l'Europe se préparait à vivre l'une des époques les plus sombres de l'humanité, la fragile cohorte des poètes, tels Rafael Alberti, Juan Ramon Jiménez, Federico Garcia Lorca et Antonio Machado s'engagea comme les ruisseaux vont à la mer, aux côtés des peuples et des classes opprimées. Parmi les plus nobles et les plus valeureux des politiques, ceux qui ne se satisfont pas des effets de tribune ou des honneurs précaires, la poésie leur devient parfois indispensable ainsi que formule Silvio Trentin :
« [...] si la poésie est utile aux peuples libres, [...] elle est, en quelque sorte, indispensable — ainsi que l'oxygène aux êtres que menace l'asphyxie — aux peuples pour qui la liberté est encore un bien à conquérir] « [...] La poésie s'adresse aussi "à ceux parmi les hommes [...] qui ont fait l'expérience cruelle de la déception et de la douleur».
Le 16 03 2017 écrit par Paul Arrighi
My love, this is especially for you, I hope you will like it. With love from, Sylvia / Mijn lieve, dit is speciaal voor jou. Ik hoop dat je het leuk zal vinden, liefs van Sylvia.


as highest as the Chomolungma in Himalaya region
as magic as this Mount Everest correction
as huge as the Nightwatch of Rembrandt
as imposant as the Niagara Waterfalls when you shall land
as friendly as the Ricefields on Bali Island
as generous as the Space Needle together with Manhattan
as lovely as the puppet dolls my fiancé gave me in Jakarta
as beautiful as my wild Rose's voice when speaking about Indonesia
as wonderful as Serfaus at wintersport-season
as warm as Granada could be on Summerdays without a reason
as romantic as Venezia on dark nights
as cool as Paris sparkles in Autumnal lights
as truest as Jesus died on the cross at Calvary
my love for you so loyal as Plath's words, no fata morgana
so honest as Picasso's own Guernica
it means only most important and precious to you and to me,
this I tell to you as my only trustee and devotee.

Truest love ever known, most loyal ever shown !
I have told you all these with the help of God, amen.


Sylvia Frances Chan
© copyright protected
Sunday 9th August 2015 @ 14.30 hrs.AM.
Cool mild weather 22 C-degrees
spysgrandson May 2013
Picasso at McDonald’s  

super size my eyes--let the glare
of Pablo’s dead desires
burn my retinas, and  
indelibly engrave the golden arches
behind my drooping lids
they will be my rainbows,
with pots of dreams
to order at each end  
and fast food prophesies
slickly sliding down yelling yellow loops
through the endless blue sky    
inside your hallowed halls
the chopped souls of Guernica  
are invisible to our eyes
their stillborn screams don’t reach our ears
but their torment will be assuaged
by a Big Mac and large fries  
they will no longer hear
the shrill whistle
of the German’s falling shells  
the laughter of the children at play  
or the other sinking sounds
that get us through the day
The internal battle..eternal....(one from the vault)


Lucifer and Jehovah dancing some mad bossa nova

While angels on horse backs fought devils with black jacks

The white dove of peace had surrendered his lease

So God ripped off his wings.. he no longer sings

Then the Devil ripped out his heart so it could end at the start.

Wagner and Chopin got frightened..

..and off they ran.

But Beethoven and Bach were sat in the park

Composing arias to fight Hells hot fires.

While Chekhov and Handel burned coramandel

But the smoke from that pyre stank like a byre.

Socrates was sat dispensing the ethics

Hippocrates swore while dishing out medics

The Muses were musing one or two were enthusing

Oooh look.. the good against sinner

Let's go down the bookies and have a bet on the winner.

Cometh the day cometh the morn

Cometh the hour cometh the dawn.

Here is Joshua blowing his horn

And here comes Gabriel but all that he meets

Are the countless dead lining up on the streets

And the wounded and deathbound far far below

I feel sorry for Gabriel I wish he could go.

But Picasso arrives and cries

My God it's my Guernica I'll do a pastiche

Oh F*ck it he says and has a pastis (or two)

Then Pollack turns up totally ******

Picks up a paint and says what I have missed?

What a fantastic sight.. angels flashing demons crashing

The hounds of Hell with teeth a gnashing

Then Neptune arrives astride his watery chariot

Scything through Demons and sat beside Judas Iscariot

Mermen and mermaids mercilessly slayed

By Beelzebubs prototypes

Those that live in the black nights.

But as the dawn breaks God knows what it takes

So he sends for his legions calls out to all regions

Take arms and do battle

Till we hears Satans death rattle.

And the heavens rip asunder to the sound of the thunder.

Satan rings on Hells bell.. tells them all is not well

Then disappears from our sight as if he's turned off the light.

Then I awake with a start knowing that I've been a part

Of something vast something grand

A spiritual war being fought in this land

I am alive and I shall survive.

PRAISE BE.
Scott Howard Jan 2014
(WE ARE!)

The space pioneers, planetary colliders seizing the heavens and placing them on earth, pop pop big bang brain busters that spin galaxies into milky ways and planets into candybars, the alien humanoid reflectors reflecting the sun back into Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

(WE ARE!)

The fire-starters, self-combustion, canvas arsonists. IGNITE! Light the streets on fire with your blood. Explode, implode, and explode again. Pilot to bombardier, we’re dropping bombs like Guernica.

(WE ARE!)

Wild creatures born out of black magic, black mamba, bear your ******* fangs! Be a predator! Find you’re prey, rip it’s ******* guts out, and paint something with them. Then scream, scream so loud that Munch himself would tell you to turn it down a notch.

(WE ARE!)

The creators, the ground shakers, the earth quakers, inventing ideas, gushing thought, and gushing blood because remember, you are alive! Alive with creativity, passion, and energy to create, because we are artists.
"WE ARE!" is also supposed to be shouted by the audience as well
Raj Arumugam Sep 2014
Goya's not gone
his nightmares and realities still shadow us -
the Los Desastres de la Guerra
still palpitate in our desert lands and hills
beating like hearts the Aztecs offered the sun;
and the barbarism of an axe over heads still thrives -
and barbarians can never hear the plea of a mother

Tampoco
tells us of women and girls ***** in war
and Oh, the Fight with Cudgels
looms large over our skies
and the horror of Saturn devouring his son
pervades the earth
and the Black Paintings
run amok in the form of men shrouded in black

Ah, Picasso is there too in our madness:
Guernica bares its teeth and monstrosities
on the horrors of our own time...Goya's and Picasso's paintings mirror the ugly realities of our world and of human beings...this is my second and final poem on this subject - it is a disgusting subject
Ant Sep 2018
As a young child I wanted a right hand.
one to ride with my vibe.
a person I don’t mind to see me cry.
i want a love so strong that it is a sin to the world eyes.
i laugh you laugh...shhhhh!!! I can be corny at times.
when one cries we are there to uplift, because love won’t let the inner die.
you Guernica
i Pablo Picasso
you humbling shinning by my side
tru love is what i’m looking for :)

feel this............i bathe you in a fruit bath
to wash away  the world stressful sin.
i dry you off then rub you down with warm oil hmph !!
let the magic begin :)
then we make love like the world is going to end.
just to wake up to see the sunrise again
that was a young child
who became a man
still wanting that right hand
Tru Love Is What I’m looking For :)

as my old skool soul wraps around your heart.
the piano sound dances with the wind
because it has found the thing it’s been looking for.
if i said it once i will say it again
tru love is what i’m looking for :)
Paul d'Aubin Dec 2016
Ce Matin-là !

(Il est encore Minuit dans notre nouveau siècle)

Ce Matin-là, six heures,
Le ciel est couleur plomb fondu
Et **** de nos lits chauds de France,
Là-bas, dans ce croissant qui fut autrefois fertile,
La loi de l'humiliation maximale
Et de l’épuisement de nos réflexes
Vitaux de dignité et d'honneur
Vient encore d'abaisser le niveau d’où l'être devra
encore plus plier l'échine et user de la reptation
pour faire admettre et tolérer
Ses petites et grandes lâchetés.
Et ces nouveaux « grands cimetières sous la lune »
Ou sont enfouis leur monceaux de victimes
données en sacrifice à ce nouveau Dieux Moloch
de l'indifférence et de la mort, des guerres de religion.
des ingérences internationales, des haines et rivalités régionales.
Nous n'avons plus, pour fonder ce grand vide,
Que certains flamboiements du passe,
Qui ont perdu leur valeur d'exemple et leur force propulsive.
Et ce nouveau Tsar, aussi prodige en Oukases et en menaces
qu'il l'est de myriades de « Guernica renouvelés ».
Il est aujourd'hui, de nouveau, « Minuit dans notre nouveau siècle »
Sans que l'on sache discerner quels sont les acteurs réels et les responsables majeurs
De ce désastre humain,
Dans son entre lac de rivalité et de tumultes
Pressant la gorge d'une nation agonisante dépecée aux quatre horizons de ses points cardinaux.
Les simplificateurs de nos raisons de mourir et leurs distributeurs d'indulgences plénières
et de permis de tuer,
Ont du mal à convaincre leurs habituels condottiere de l'idéal.
Et jamais l'odeur de mort ne fut moins masquée que dans ce combat de désespérés et de furieux,
Nos présentes guerres ont bien du mal à se la jouer chevaleresques et « justes causes »
Ce qui n'empêche pas les enfants de souffrir et de mourir,
dans cette « Terre de Cham » de tous les cauchemars et de toutes les souffrances,
pas si **** des hauteurs béantes où la citadelle d'Alamut reste fidèle à son sombre et meurtrier prestige.
Tu n'as vu jusqu'ici naître aucun message de vie, neuf, pour les êtres,
Et ton chaudron de haine et de vengeances engendre sa part nouvelle de serpents et de dragons,
Qui viennent répandre l'épouvante dans les endroits et les lieux de notre douce France
et mêmes dans ce Molenbeeck Belge.
Méfions-nous de la haute nuit ou se déroulent ces sabbat de tueurs.
Car il est de ces nuits noires qui glacent le sang et exportent de sombres guerriers.
Il est aussi de nouveaux « vieux de la Montagne » qui nous envoient leurs nouveaux « haschischins » et leurs messagers porteurs de meurtres cruels.
Là où il faudrait des paroles d'amour et des impositions de mains.
La guerre ne sait nourrir que la guerre !
Et toute diplomatie n' est que trop souvent l'antichambre de l'art de tuer et de terroriser
en brouillant les cartes.
Il est comme aujourd'hui des périodes,
Ou dans le creux des lits et du val de France surgissent des tueurs blêmes,
Et des menaces à prendre au sérieux.
Mais hélas, l'on ne peut impunément demander à vivre en Paix
si près des brasiers rallumés et des guerres de cent années rouvertes.

Paul Arrighi

(Ce texte crépusculaire a été écrit à Toulouse le 22 décembre 2016, date ultime de la « chute » d ' Alep)
(Ce texte crépusculaire a été écrit à Toulouse le 22 décembre 2016, date ultime de la « chute » d ' Alep)
Dan Mar 2017
I won't write a letter to some president
Whoever they may be
Because if they ever truly wanted freedom
They would tear down the fences
And make the White House a shelter for the  homeless  
Or they would fill all the empty houses on my street
And every other empty house on every other street with empty houses
If there is something I've learned from 21 years
Is that its the common people who make the real change in this world
It's the common people who build the world for all to life in
For me this started at Peekskill
When 20 thousand men and women
formed a wall so Paul Robeson could sing safe from harm
Then I learned of Spain in the 30s
From the Asturian miners to the Catalan anarchists
The guns that protected Madrid and thousands of voices singing A Las Barricadas and No Pasarán
And some nights I whisper a curse for every bomb that struck Guernica
Meanwhile in West Virginia common people fought for equality at Harper's Ferry and for the rights of the workers at Blair Mountain
And even today in southern Mexico, it's the common people who are creating Zapata's great dream of a world where land belongs to those who work it
The people of this world are capable of such beautiful things
All the dollars in all the banks can't buy out the human spirit
And all the bullets in all the guns can't lessen the strength of us all standing together
And just as a wise man once said:
"We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute."
The quote belongs to the Spanish anarchist  Buenaventura Durruti
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Apr 2023
Lines and cubes, unparalleled construction,
participles that don't dangle, heads of horses,
Guernica in stanzas, feelings contorted,
crying while dying, iambic pentameters,
stiff arms straight up, screams wide open,
metaphors and ******, hanging on walls of
Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia,
blue pillows on the floor, broken legs and
arms, ******* and agonies, montage of
blood and brutality, peace and war, love
and kisses, hits and misses, curves and
angles, bulls beheaded, silence and solemnity,
silver-blue stars bursting through open
windows, helplessness and hope. Picasso
and I.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS
To my grandma,



Dressed with your antique gold decorations
And your oneiric sets
In a swinging gait, bucolic
You come into view, tall, fabulous

In your museum, my amused
Unveiling the stylized veils
Around marbles, spread
In colors, irised hues

You’re dancing, evolving, fragile
Between Vélázquez and Vergil.
Of the Graces, of Guernica, deft
You know it all, aurora, sybil.

Of your opportune inspiration
I tasted all the delights
Between your eyes and smooth fingers
I’ve seen the masters’ evil spells

But also a pale beauty
We have together moored
On the ocean of eternity
Beside the Arts, carved out of love.

Still reading in your golden voice
Those expert accents of yours out of
Time, your moves back then
A work today, still glistening



To you then this libertine fire
Your impish fingers detain…


September 8, 2015, Lyon
Translated on October 18, 2015
My grandmother is a museum curator, she took me to most of the museums she found fascinating around the world, mostly in France, and I, my love for arts enhanced in her shadow, visited many museums home and abroad
wordvango Feb 2016
a favorite song , that would be like choosing a favorite
child . Or a favorite cloud, or blade of grass, or puppy.
My favorite ice cream , one day is chocolate, the next
strawberry, the next plain vanilla.
My favorite painting depends on my mood.
"The Scream" spoke to me last week when my bills were due.
Van Gogh's "Irises" speaks to my lonely day.
In a protesting mood, sick of the world's atrocities I study
Picasso's "Guernica". My favorite day
was today , at times, then long past or in the future,
depending.  When a woman smiles at me,
no matter if I have loved her , or touched her she is my
favorite, and is my favorite smell and taste and kiss.
My next breath will be the only thing that stays constant.
My ability to change, is my favorite trait.
Cinzia Apr 2018
You don't begin with Guernica
if that's somewhere you're ever
meant to go

chubby baby hands grip the crayon
someday if you're lucky (or not)
they'll draw a thin straight line
in charcoal
just the least perceptible curve
enough to delight the eye
imperfection thrills the masses

then you paint and paint and paint
time and patience
some money
luck again, always luck

you're a master

maybe someone will recognize in your lifetime
most likely no
unless you're a tireless self-promoter

but your work
your work is sublime
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2021
**** officer: Did you do this?


Pablo Picasso: No, you did.
Paul House May 2018
The twisted, bare branches
of the vines in winter
have something of the sea
and a memory of centuries
healing their gnarled amputations.
To see a vineyard, thus,
spread out across the earth
in neat little rows
is to look at stillness.
Or maybe it is patience.
The quiet, passive waiting for the inevitable.
The lurch out of silence into life.

July now and, though the base is untouched,
though there’s still the sea and an age,
still the same crippled shape in the branches,
an outside has blasted across the fields,
so green with the sun shining through them.
And from this abundant foliage, order,
at least to an exterior eye
which sees only one thing or its opposite.
Earth and objects only cannot falsify alone.
How easy it is to be happy.

And how easy to compare with snow
those fallen poplar seeds that covered
the ground towards the end of spring,
and so dry that, seeing soldiers
lighting fast, impermanent fires
like fuses to some explosion,
I, too, had to try and so bent
and clumsily set fire to a huge pile
which scorched a path
a yard wide across the grass
and burnt the hairs from your arm.
Later to step into the river,
not knowing that the seeds had spread
even that far, making it seem
more like the earth than water.

How much there is to give,
to learn about each other.
So much seems solid for so long and isn’t,
seems forgetting and is waiting.
So, slowly and with many deaths,
like the building of a cathedral,
it all accumulates, then disperses,
leaving time like a stork nesting.

But for towns, for cities, there is
not this hording of experience,
just monuments of cement and stone.
Memories can be found, of course,
An old wall in Logroño,
an aqueduct in Segovia,
but these memories are a comfort,
not a weight to be carried forward.
The difference between a mother’s kiss
and that of a lover leaving.

Strange how things live towards a point
which, when arrived at, nullifies
that which has gone before,
becomes the point from which its life begins.
The name Guernica does not mean
for many an oak tree, distant lords
swearing to respect the law.
It means either war or Picasso.

Life can only be built on levels of reaction,
extremes of light and measured darkness,
what exists and what is invented,
love where silence matters
and the sleeping world given in
to our far from careful keeping
when what there is in the head is too large.

We cast off the unimaginable and sad
and the intrusion of fact narrows
all boundaries to the certain,
growth permitted in one way only.
Ah, the half-truths of poetry,
the evasion, the huge deceit.

Near my house there is a mountain.
People call it el León Dormido,
and when seen from one side,
looking out from the city,
you can believe it to be so,
this lumbering, wind-modelled rock
really is a lion asleep.
So long as you never see it
from any other direction.

To make the journey happily
out along the dust road
or maybe even by train,
gripping a bag of grapes,
is to allow the truth and fact
to step into your present.
From one side the mountain’s magical,
from the other three it’s nothing,
not even much of a mountain.    

Too much examination can be bad
as we invent what it is we wish to see,
invent, distort and fabricate.
But when we find what lies behind,
the truth is there waiting for us
like an eagle high above the mountain
casting its shadow down across a fox.
.and then it's the drop into reality
the penny picnics and sheer brutality
of modernity,

Oxford Street is Guernica,
the guerrilla revolutionary or
the expeditionary force
laden with *****
she equates it to beauty
the sale is now on
come on down.

I'm going down
slowly
slowly
ready for the show
most
holy
holy
then it's back to reality
the totalitarian
the vegetarian
the vegan
the meagre
the lactose intolerant
the dairy queen?
she was magnificent
the league of the madmen
come on down
pick up your brushes and
paint.

I watch raindrops
nothing stops them
not even
umbrellas.
Andrew Duggan Dec 2018
The last day of the year
was cold……another art form lost in translation.
And hardly anything as beautiful
as the sun setting in Xinxiang.

I went for coffee with my friend.
We drank and talked about the picture
of Kurt Cobain on the wall,
and how he blew his brains out.

I told her that Hemingway
went the same way.
And that he was a concrete man.

The girl next to us told me to “be quite”,
she felt I was too loud.
I answered in the negative, and told her
“This is my world as well”.
It was only a moment.

Soon we will both be asleep
and only the shadows will remain
For some reason, I thought of Guernica
and dreams falling from the sky.

So I wished my friend a
‘Happy New Year’, and suggested that she
read more Bukowski next year.
Mikaela L Oct 2020
Why do people get louder when they are misunderstood?
Maybe each syllable becomes W  I  D  E  R, TALLER, simpler,
Maybe the alarming noise opens a path for the important,
Maybe there is no reason at all,
Maybe there is an element of Guernica in it,
Maybe, just like Picasso ... they just do it.
I've always wondered if it really works...
They only come alive when
you don't stand and look
but step inside them,

The Mona Lisa,
Guernica
The Birth of Venus
The Last Supper,
The Night Watch,
Whistler's Mother,
The Laughing Cavalier,
Van Gogh, self-portrait,
the man with one ear,

I'm here
inside them all
in some grandiose
scheme
or maybe it's just a dream.
When the signals get mixed and
your eyes become fixed on
the darkness beyond that
inner space
and you're falling
falling flat on your face,
that's the faint.

You.can paint me a picture
call it Guernica
it's no use to me if I'm not there
anyway
I have my own war to fight.

The CCTV is watching me
the way that I sit watching it
life goes on In studio one
until the lights go out and
everything's gone.
Qualyxian Quest Dec 2022
A love for the English language, yes
Pero, un pequito Espanyol tambien
La Florida in summer
San Francisco Zen

Staunton aglow in snow
Dr. Cohen calls Shakespeare the Gift
Anxiety attacks
Grateful when the depression lifts

I was in the UK twice
Went to Poet's Corner
Long Black Veil
Solitary Mourner

I love American music
But I'm not that great a singer
My lips upon her lips
Her hair within my fingers

Simone Weil in Assisi
1937
Guernica as well
Stranger Things' 11

          Merci

— The End —