Standing Where Picasso Stood (2004 poem)

I stood where the great artist once stood, in front of his lithe but poignant fin de siècle oil painting, "Courtesan with Hat."

I tried to imagine myself in his demiurgic footfalls as he once sketched the outline of a French lady and filled in the colors in his indomitable, unconventional way – as only he could do it.

I pretended I was he, meticulously cobbling together dots and strokes of tint, tone, and pigment to give birth to a whole yet nebulous figure of a nameless woman seamlessly blended in with the flora in the canvas.

My usurping of his lofty role as master artist was like a blast of fresh air; it freed the blocked waters of my creativity and propelled me towards my fate as an aspiring artiste.

But then, out of nowhere, came the misshapen image of "Guernica". It smashed my aesthetic wistfulness, striking me down with the horrors and distortions of war.

The Spanish Civil War, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Mindanao, Basilan, all came to mind, tragedies of immense proportions.

Guernica reminds us that each bullet, each shell, each landmine, each massacre induced by those conflicts have destroyed our humanity piecemeal.

Mournfully, I turned away from Picasso’s courtesan, and thought of nothing else but the tortured memory of the orphaned, widowed, and broken-hearted skeletons spawned by those terrible struggles.

I indeed stood where the great artist once stood, with creative admiration in my heart but with tears of blood in my soul.

ALLEN GABORRO