Bulls run amok through the lanes
Destroying shop fronts, door frames, fences
In a cascade of implacable terror.
Lights flash on and off in all the houses
Until the rooftops shear off in flames.
Opened hands imploring skywards,
Stretch high as if to catch the bombs
That drench the town in molten tears.
A felled horse screams, her backbone severed.
A woman clasps a dying infant,
Her wild eyes fixed on yesterday,
Tomorrow cancelled, the clocks all melted,
Time dissolved as morning implodes.
Invincible in their sleek new bombers,
Airmen usurp the irascible gods
Who once ruled Europe in thunder and earthquake.
Even the chariot that carried the sun
Has spiraled to earth, impelled by their powers.
The deified airmen soar like Condors
On wings that glitter in the morning light.
The woman cradling the dying infant
Half blind watches the aircraft depart.
It made no sense that such elegant aircraft
Were manufactured simply to slaughter;
She had dreamt such beauty could only be good,
But now it was real it had killed her world.
She sees the hurt horse writhing and kicking.
She lets out a cry that echoes and echoes.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter,
August 4th. - 6th. - 16th. 2021.
I saw the tapestry version of Guernica in the Whitechapel Art Gallery when it was shown there in April 2010. The images terrified me. The aircraft are not represented in the picture but the people on the ground during the attack could see them clearly because thet were flying quite low. In some ways rocket attacks are more terrifying due to the very short warnings that the people in the target areas get. But what a terrible waste of engineering skills these rockets are!
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