Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ (written by Brendon Behlke and Pablo Ramon)

Spotlight; me:
peace starved,
hunger met by darkness,
Not sated –
            stoked.
Become bullish fire,
horns of flame,
eager to gore
an audience of errant toreadors.

Stage Direction:
“Destroy”
“Murder,”
Scene – Infinity,
enter: monster (me).
Raze the set to rubble,
fade to black.

House lights on,
Reveal: Wreckage,
horror,
me.
Not the fiend –
but the human takes a bow,
for all the vindicated matadors,
dead eyed, slack jawed,
red with the weight of requital,
as thick curtains fall,
secreting away every
                        exit;

I leave, but linger,
haunting the now dimming theater,
where shadows stretch and merge,
a figure lost in canvas.
seeking peace,
and forever unseen.

A Haunting

It’s not my house,
not my place,
yet still I insist.

Here,
beyond threshold,
like a curse uttered under breath,
breaching pursed lips,
that would condemn if pressed,
I dissipate into the darkness,
ears strained – eyes starving.

I hear the nothing,
pull back, stretch taut,
and snap with the sound of a house aging,
then reset – repeat, snap again.
My heart follows the rhythm,
and still plummets a counter melody.

From room to room,
with echoed steps of borrowed time,
I agonize like winter wounds bleeding,
chasing ends that defy coagulation,
surpassing cold with warm history,
but in the end settling
for a conclusion in between.

Every corner hides nothing,
but I feel something –
and comprehend neither.