Guernica: The Art of War

This can be found at a Poets Against War site:

Guernica: The Art of War

In Baghdad, do they know
that men who cannot look
at even a weaving
of a painting,
Guernica,
will not blink to render it real
in that city's streets?

Why should warriors shy from a painting?
It is not their handiwork.
Their hands will never touch
a brush,
or paint,
or canvas.

They themselves will never say
to this old man,
Stand there,
just so,
against that wall,
where blood will mix with dust
upon a palette of broken stone.

They will never arrange that woman's
hand upon her daughter's head
at just the turning
in the bright,
black braid
where a scarlet blossom
will grow,
thrusting its petals between fingers
and thumb.

The studios of war are safe.
The artists never
see what they have done.

But in Baghdad,
where the mural
of destruction will be drawn,
it is the sky
that people
wince to look at,
knowing that from the first
black scrawl across the blue,
they will see
Guernica,
Guernica
everywhere
and nothing else
ever.

.... ... .