Guernica

On April 26, 1937, the Spanish town of Guernica was bombed by Nazi Germany's Condor Legion and Fascist Italy's Aviazione Legionaria. It is usually considered the first use of aerial terror bombardment against a civilian population. My lyrics were inspired by a visit to Spain in 2002. Picasso's famous painting of the incident is at the center of the poem. Unfortunately, his heirs maintain their copyright fiercely. As a result I used other art. The Horse on the thumbnail here, and the photos were created by Chat GPT, most of the other art is of my own making. The notable exception is the charging horses, a painting I bought in a small shop in Turkey. It was made by a Turkish artist named Fahri Çakırbaş. Lyrics: Guernica In a museum in Spain in spring, At the dawn of the millennium I finally saw for myself The painting that ushered the old world out In the backwash from the bombers’ wings. Guernica! Guernica! A thousand sketches Made whole by one idea. This century it seems Will use this cry again As its model for great art: A thousand punctures, tiny crosses, Random strikes and marks Opening the white canvas into dark: A thousand breaking images; A thousand breaking hearts. These human screams and all of them Constructed of mere dots and squiggles Alone each as inconsequential As an average day’s work. Crosses, checks and punctuations That make up a day’s work: great art! Seen all together they launch a cry Out on the seas of the eye Out on the ocean of the heart. [break/chorus] My thoughts are on The pallor of the cherry blooms Of their smell and how they cling To a maiden’s cheek A black wet stone, A black hearse rolling in the rain alone. What makes it worse Is that it’s clear it’s all been done before. All the causes, arguments, And then, inevitably, war. And finally, this scream Heard briefly, then set in a mausoleum of a room The checks and crosses, An old ledger of real grief The glyphs of scattered, whitened bone Schematics of a ritual doom. A lancing gesture of relief. Guernica! Guernica! It has a hundred years in it, that scream. In our callow empire’s capital A world from where I sit and drink Young hawks take a turn Down streets of plum and cherry flower And dream… Of stepping upward on the rungs of power And of various lands that they might burn. [Break/chorus] My thoughts are on The pallor of the cherry blooms Of their smell and how they cling To a maiden’s cheek A black wet stone, A black hearse rolling in the rain alone. What is enough-- To hearts reared only to want more? Can all the grace Even of this most promising of seasons Sustain hearts reared upon What has lately passed for reason When those who cringe to see their country’s honor lost Must also stand the charge of treason? The new war flexes the bones of the old New fleshed and sinewed by refurbished hate Unlids its mummy eyes Lifts its scabrous limbs out of old mire Nods to the gaping grave, its, sire, Makes vocal, old prevarications Lying glibly with an ancient grin In a rhetoric which attributes Virtue and tradition To every darkest antique sin and vice And blows now from every media opening A-whirl in MAGA’s mounting spin All rancid, charnel, mocking wind! Spring! And a new war is a comin’ in Predicated on the simple massive error That force and fear Can be shield and spear As we win a duel with terror. Minds that see in this path sense Have taken leave of it already And of any hope of understanding The gifts that spring So liberally dispenses [break/chorus] My thoughts are on the pallor of the cherry blooms Of their smell and how they cling To a maiden’s cheek A black wet stone, A black hearse rolling in the rain alone.