Picasso's Guernica Stigma Youth Symbol Martyrdoms Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

smoke rising as window civilization view remembers brighter days
before jack boot shade gray surrounding killed impaled freedoms
under slain horse dead dismembered soldier rapid heat rot perfumes


his hand on a severed arm still grasps
a shattered sword decay flower grows
his hand his severed arm sword parts

what symbolism here crimson reads?
written on leaf palms of dead soldiers
read open palm of our dead soldiers

stage repeated is written a cross centuries
centuries stigma youth symbol martyrdoms
derived not from stigmata Christ but wars

what light bulb blazes above dismembered corpses?
what evil eye shape Satan peeps over suffering horse's?
head what eureka moment invented bare bulb torturer's?

cell purpose so solitude removed from learned monks
cell which serves to silent vesper recite sacred palmists verses
symbolism relates to Spanish light bulb 'bombilla' makes


explodes allusions to bombs Nazi Guernica destruction effects
modern technologies promised blessings blast curse societies
not a single dropp of blood spoilt fails to cry out plaintive pains


Copyright © Terence George Craddock