© 1970
Picasso’s painting depicts the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937. Franco’s German and Italian allies in the Spanish Civil War carpet-bombed Guernica, a stronghold of Republican opposition to Franco’s Nationalists, for hours.
Almost as famous for his biting wit as he was for his artistic prowess, Picasso once treated a German Gestapo officer to a sharp rejoinder in reference to the painting’s depiction of the atrocities of fascism and war. When asked by an officer about a photo of the painting, “Did you do that?” Picasso is said to have replied, “No, you did.”
See the picture you made fighting wars for mom
Fly the impotent bomb
Watch your babies drop on the building top
Feel the brink of the land as a flash in the pan
And your wings sail free where the living has stopped
And the dying prolonged
See the young girl pines
In her arms she whines where her child sleeps
For its breasted nurse became the universes
And a man’s eyes glow in a bright window
As he sinks away with his legs of clay
While the moment suspends all the living loose ends
Feel the darkness prevail though the city turns pale
And the people stand statues of the land
Then the bulb blows out in a silent shout
From the open mouths wailing up at your
As the nation sings in an orchestra of Guernica
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