Kit Kelen - ekphrastic - Guernica

Guernica

I was in a room full of children

we were together in a great presence

how could they know?

what's ash to them?

it wasn't the town … or the war

it wasn't even the man painting

or the idea in his head

(though we could all see him

though we knew his love)

the name is a truth in itself

… not forgetting is deciding a self

it's deciding to be

the children – how could they know

this black milk

or a hand grows thorns?

they would not recognise

breasts mechanically contrived

how can children know

a certain horse is the past of our terror

that this sun is only a lightbulb

has to be thought up of a morning?

there is no daylight here

the sword is broken or the hand

that bull we are with

face almost to face...

confusions, as in the moment we've come to

is there a right reading?

right way up?

democracy had to be thought of

it has to be made every day

and again

and together

I was in a room full of children

the teacher told imagination

she was all arms

fingers were pointing

it was their language

the town has another

I am in my own

I'm with you

the painting is a manner of speaking

the town is a people

death's from the air

the line makes the map

and the map is re-made

where there's no colour

there's line and there's shade

the bird becomes its scream

hands are past the sky

even children can see

it's only statues lie broken in dust

they're the unburied

the past is with us here and again

even a little is work to remember

listen for what the teacher will say

the name of the place is a truth in itself

… not forgetting is deciding a self

it's deciding to be

where drips of paint have come still

there was hope then

…before it was dry

the world might have woken

how little we survivors can tell

we have to remember why the fallen fell

for some events there's this language past words

there is no daylight here

democracy had to be thought of

it has to be made every day

and again

and together

the painting is a flag

is a fridge magnet, postcard

carry this sacred thing in your head

memory!

a banner is a tear

coiffure free flown

the moment standing

is imagination

it's we who do the staring

I from my past

those children seem all future to me

can we listen now? do we attend?

the only anchoring is flesh

bones shallow

shall we leave them above ground?

the only colour is ash

imagination's democracy

that's what fascism kills

kills the colour

the teacher is trying to tell

the work is a great expulsion of breath

the colour of the work is ash

last breath is what a ghost is

listen!

it's with your eyes you'll hear them now

be with them in beyond of words

a name is not a painting

do I even conjure an up?

how is it this work of hands means for me?

and for the first time for these children?

the name of the place is a truth in itself

… not forgetting is deciding a self

it's deciding to be

how right it is to say our shame

inherited of those never there

who wouldn't speak the language

would didn't come when called

they were statues

just a few moments later

death knocked at their door

but here was one moment

the world could have stopped

were we then? ask where are we now

witness hands of the dead

in this heart darkening

the decades well and spill

like chocolate

in the dictator's cup

and the decades to follow he had

the hanged and the shot

of the centuries mourn us

the face disfigured

under the boot

is sorry for us still

and this was a town

these were the people

it's for the children

this truth is shown

in the form of these statues

in ash

left to this wall

and portable still

it's for them

we remember now

after the moment's silence

surely then we'll know to speak