Long Guernica Poems
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I once saw a soul hold a brush—
when my eyes first fell in love
with the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Michelangelo, with the sweep of his hand,
took me through space and time,
into a cathedral of bliss
painted upon the heavens.
When I dreamed of the Mona Lisa,
and tasted the silence
of The Last Supper,
I woke asking—
Was Leonardo da Vinci a man,
or the myth the gods paint
into our dreams?
Time unrolled its canvas,
and 1889 wrapped me in its swirling night—
The Starry Night.
I whispered, “Is Vincent van Gogh gone,
or has he only moved into the light?”
In Spain, I searched for Pablo Picasso.
They brought me Guernica—
its cries frozen in fractured forms—
and Cubism leaned close to say,
“Some men are too vast
for one dimension.”
I wandered further,
until Claude Monet stood before me.
No words—only a gift:
Impression, Sunrise.
Its breath still warm,
its light eternal.
Raphael appeared,
soft yet unyielding.
For five centuries, he said,
his art has been a pillar in the temple of beauty.
When he placed Madonna in the Meadow
into my hands,
I wept.
The Venetian school bowed low
and whispered, “Titian.”
Before Bacchus and Ariadne,
I turned away—
fearing my heart might shatter
beneath such beauty.
And so I called out
to the gods of talent:
“To all the artists—
you who bend reality to your vision—
you have made the impossible breathe,
and turned the world’s imagination
into something we can touch.”
Artists, poets, both evermore at the forefront
seizing historical truth, citing the rawness, the hunt
of the world around them, the avant garde
of the imperfections of chaos, of war
of that moment we think we have lost it all
when we felt our lives big or small
of our nation experimentation
where we're free to follow our inclination
like the inspired painter had found
Picasso’s Guernica had captured profound,
when the poet pens what's in his heart
of every hymn he's ever loved, 'tis art
Neruda’s Canto General, of the brutal fight
when the light hits just right
the inspired painter finds his way,
as Goya’s French Revolution did portray
Lady Liberty I praise, she is my patron saint
her flame and tabula ansata I paint
spikes splayed upon a crown, accents
Almighty’s seven seas and continents
I show my patriotism quill a Roughrider poem
recite the very core of poetry to cheer them
beneath an uproar of pyrotechnic explosions
cups raised sabre salutes, ambivalent emotions
Aboard the long train of our native-born story
we are in the engineer’s seat with eternal glory
guiding our future destiny, rooted in ritual
down the track passersby in person or virtual
from beginnings to now, we’ve come to learn
we are conductors directing every stop and turn
Fourth Of July
Celebrating our 250th anniversary
July 4th, 2026
***Disclaimer: This is not so much a poem, as an exercise in stream of consciousness. I just sort of wrote what I thought about. Sorry if it makes little or no sense to anyone else. ;p
There is an intense power
misunderstood.
A little white lie,
a whopper of a tale,
in equal measure
alter, in the mind of listening ears,
reality.
In fact, the white lies,
those minor, subtle changes
conceal more believably
the truth.
But so what?
Nobody gets hurt.
Maybe one fudged things a little,
to get the deal,
to get the date,
to get what was wanted
and who cares?
Alternate realities
existing in varied minds
matter little in the long view,
or the grand scheme,
and yet…I wonder:
What is betrayal?
How far can we bend truth
how distorted can we make reality
how flexible is another’s trust
how forgiving?
The line seems to be getting blurry
or maybe it always has been
for lack of clarity
due to lack of information.
Convincing another of a lie
is compelled ignorance
of reality;
is playing God.
Which raises the curious point
of whether God
so toys with men’s perceptions.
But let’s not digress down that road,
we’ll save it for a sunset chit-chat.
Bear no false witness.
Swear on the truth.
Integrity.
What meaning have such morals
when at a word,
men create illusions
and other men gather
in a pretended utopia,
or dystopia, united.
Sharing drinks and tall-tales
lying to rest arguments
nobody is making.
Dispelling false realities
with their own false realities
But why not?
What is creativity if not
false expressions of what is.
Is abstraction not equally vile?
Perhaps then, there can be no art
without deception.
What if deception is,
at the core,
an art form.
Confident strokes of illusion
disassemble reality
one harmless lie
layered on another
in a hypothetical Guernica.
…and such are the times.
The Bucket List
Things considering before the pail is fully on empty
He ponders through travel brochures in his mind
Engages embraces envelopes the mantle of peace
Bungee jump Taj Mahal and Guernica safe in the bag
Umbilical chord from toxic relations dismembered
Cairo Grand Canyon Provence Blue Mosque rearranged
Kai is happy with memories battles poetry to be told
Enlightened he may not become darkness holds beauty
To halt pause and live in the moment requires no list
Leaving the strife for perfection behind one step at
Invaluable steps just for now and forever in cautious
Search for impermanence he wishes for soul to prevail
To make love on Kilimanjaro but the mountain is here
12th February 2017
Once and forever upon infinite times it seemed the
maze of shattered fragments tattered mosaic and
broken shards and void of nowhere in the shredded
tapestry and guillotine of darkness had descended
into an arid garden shrivelled mind and suffocating
clouds in bouts of shrouds of rigor mortis wriggling
from a long gone heaven into a self-imposed garrote
and suicidal tempest’s guardian hanging by a thread
Midnight was hell in plantations of Guernica as the
dark side of orbital shadows festered popsicles of
ragged icy water derelict vessels towards demise
Angel is too small a word for the spoon descending
into my heart cuddling the spikes and spices sprinkled
scoops of hoops amazing graces when passion and
extinct desire kindled kinder spirits and inflamed a
perished forlorn moon from craters of lonely desolation
Synchronicity enveloped the mutual satellites of love and
sensual perfume fragrant consummating dreams and
screams of joy’s exuberance rescued from pre-mortal final
fasciculation the peaceful miracle of vibrant life and living
11th February 2017
Black and White Yoyage
Ying and Yang come to mind that wakes up in the morning
Harmony the task for the day and the nights of the soul as
black coffee takes hold with bits of refined white powder
No credit card needed to shoot up the lines just sweetener
Money short as many times but the fangs of depression at
bay in the haven of a polychrome garden paradise around
Abundance mixes genesis and evolution blends the colours
cherishes diversity celebrates similarities holds dear all
the differences which we humans bring to the daily party
On my travels to Spain with bright sun and black secrets
in history memories civil strife and factional fracture
I stumbled into Guernica the painting the scream into hell
No hues no colourant just clarity’s pigment shadows and all
where the white flag of peace had been bombed into dust
with help of Mussolini’s black shirts and fascist brown hue
From a chessboard of aerial precision it was black or white
a foreplay of what was to come in the wars to proceed in
white ashen faces and clean shaven razor blades of demise
Back in South Africa’s so called rainbow nation I have digested
distorted figures of human targets screaming animals shattering
aeroplane parts sending Picasso’s message into the world
Black and white still struggle here overt and covertly where
Apartheid lives on some lives matter more than some others
in a country steam rolled by corruption of capitalistic greed
Coffee in hand and sweet sugar soothing my wake up call
it all seems so powerless when I as a minion of resistance
confide my wish for full colours to the message of love
Ying and Yang leaves no room for aggression no place for
killing fields in the pastures of plenty just whisks and whiffs of
what could become if understood we are all black and white
15th February 2017
It is hard to walk in the sand especially with boots and a heavy rifle.
Manuel and I would sit on a rock and watch the moon give birth to
a distant blue Africa.
Franco's Guardia Civil were not all thugs. A few were poets.
Manuel's father had worshiped the general and had blessed
the day Guernica 'that Marxist nest' had been flattened.
That was decades before he was born, yet Manuel still patrolled
the beach, weaving between sunbathing tourist seeking nonexistent saboteurs.
On his rounds the young conscript fell in love - often, but in winter
(when his sneering corporal was away), he would sit in the bar,
tongue curled like a snail shell, dedicating lurid hyperbole
to every female foreigner that had smiled at him, and to all
the Catalan girls that never did.
That night the moon seemed to translate for us.
He asked me earnestly:
if I thought Franco would ever lift the ban on bikini's?
"Never!" I replied, "The Pope and the Rightists are against it."
Manuel rose and shuffled sadly away, his rifle dragging on the sand.
That night the moon came close, to bask on Manuel’s beach,
and she without a stitch of cloud-cover over her matronly form.
Rough Landscape
In my mind the landscape of Guernica features high on the many
crowbars to unmask that inner prison of conscience and humanity
So many scenes of destruction with no predominant hierarchy of evil
no glass ceiling of guilt so many tapestries of loving lives abandoned
A museum piece in Madrid with no doubt yet an exhibition of madness
displayed on the altar of what we as people have become and behold
Life would not have me nor would I have my life if my father had not
escaped what now is Kaliningrad on one of the last boats ‘cross the sea
As a German court has decreed soldiers are murderers and my Dad
has therefore been one of those martial slayers in history’s temple
There is not much left of the City of Prussian ambition and blasts
from the past just mainly a naval harbour and renegade socialist pride
A rebuilt cathedral and memories of amber and marzipan shared but
I hear Hitler Youths shouting their ‘Heils’ in absurd pubertal screams
For my own sanity and resolution of trans-generational disgrace I need
to visit my beginnings to start telling the story how to scape inner Peace
01st May 2017
Tie my hands,
so I may not touch others
with potent realities
Bind me from
what transpires about
Shackle my passions
of indignation’s
Muzzle my voice
meant to bellow and not lilt
Blindfold me not see
with a painter’s eye I rely
The art you’ll recognize,
warscapes that captivate
Hinder me from
perceiving what to navigate
Shield me from
poet’s stories begging to be told,
like the Buddha confined,
b’fore escaping his privileged environs
Shroud what are already
squinting eyes kept from comprehension
Gagged and kept in ignorance
and with festering hypertensions
Cover my mouth for
I shall not speak what is called truth
Crush my spirit in defeat,
trampled since my youth
What is left for me on this earth?
Taken a fin d’une époque,
an end of mine mirth
with a madcap army closing in,
and a harsh prison penance
a desperate gaiety leaves its efflorescence,
crimson wall art stains
no more shall be a poets words
and nothing beautiful remains
ergo focusing on the vanguard
this rendered impotent,
when the rearguard deserts
Lavender lovers are fine
they share a rapt audience,
tho we need to discuss
harsher matters with more gravitas
For this is chattel slavery, is it not?
Man enslaved like cattle,
let me speak out for my heart is worn
My tears run dry, free me
for life has taught me that when
there are many coincidences, they are not
Excessive serendipity harbors
an urgent message
speak softly at me be aware
I scream loud from the top of my lungs
ask questions not to be in the dark,
my spirit cast a monochromatic
stark palette of black, white, and gray
keep my spirit free respect me!
Jail me in the dept of dungeons
like the poets of yore,
Tho stone walls do not a prison
make, nor iron bars a cage
War is this fellow poets,
if you want to see a man
returned from the dead
if you wish to confirm
with your own eyes
that someone escaped the claws of death,
then I’m sorry to disappoint
and there out of nothing came hope
for peace harmony and justice
he knows only too well that he cannot control
events situations nor other people
only has the choice of how to respond
wishing wanting demanding procrastinating
had got him into his own distorted shadows
to the brink of an abyss near a canyon of tears
anger resentments and fears threatened all values
yet love tolerance compassion and self-respect
brought him closer to reality and the chance for a future
he does not wish to fight any longer
but is ready to stand up tall for himself
and now what seemed to be crumbling
a once beautiful mosaic turned into tatters and shards
offers building blocks for healing and recovery
in his meditations he saw faint images
of Munch’s Scream and Gaugin’s exotic beauties
surprisingly no Guernica of Picasso
but the peace doves are present
songs are no eulogy any longer
and hope came out faith and surrender