Guernica

A mother made pietà melts her scream
Into the ashen, hot air where the sun's
Good globe is simmed and Peace, the dove, falls down
Struck like the others by the blight of war.
The flaming tail of a minotaur
Spreads dancing, orange petals through the scene
Where a face, bringing light, will soon face dark
Like its squealing companion down below,
Like a stained, mangled maiden, like the horse
Whose snout, with budding skin, peels to a skull
While its side, like the maiden's sprouts in red.
Beneath its hooves, lies our great Jesus dead
Again, again with each new war we wage
His hollowed hands and criss-cross arms are splayed.
Clenched in his fist there rests a broken knife
And blooming in his blood, our blood, there stands
A lonely iris pointing to the sky.