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# Pablo Picasso has words for Colin Powell from the other side of death
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/pablo-picasso-has-words-for-colin-powell-from-the-other-side-of-death/
- Published: 2003-02-25T00:02:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-17T11:13:34.000Z
- Description: The author of ‘Death and the Maiden’ imagines what the Spanish painter might say to the US Secretary of State about his masterpiece Guernica
- Author: Ariel Dorfman
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:08, #ImagesUploaded

![Guernica.jpg](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3f/80/3f804bea-4b2d-4ddf-9ff0-6ec7d0afa5fa/content/images/2026/04/Guernica-1776424233631.jpg)

Yes, even here, here more than anywhere else,  
we know and watch what is going on  
what you are doing with the world  
we left behind  

What else can we do with our time?  

Yes, there you were, Mr. Secretary,  
I think that is how they call you  
there you were  
standing in front of my Guernica  
a replica it is true  
but still my vision of what was done  
that day to the men to the women  
and to the children to that one child  
in Guernica that day in 1937  
from the sky  

Not really standing in front of it.  
It had been covered, our Guernica,  
covered so you could speak.  
There in the United Nations building.  
So you could speak about Iraq.  

Undisturbed by Guernica.  

Why should it disturb perturb you?  
Why did you not ask that the cover  
be removed  
the picture  
be revealed?  

Why did you not point to the shrieking  
the horse dying over and over again  
the woman with the child forever dead  
the child that I nurse here in this darkness  
the child who watches with me  
as you speak  
and you speak.  
Why did you not say  
This is why we must be rid of the dictator.  
Why did you not say  
This is what Iraq has already done and undone.  
Why did you not say  
This is what we are trying to save the world from.  
Why did you not use  
Guernica to make your case?  

Were you afraid that the mother  
would leap from her image and say  
no he is the one  
they are the ones who will bomb  
from afar  
they are the ones who will kill  
the child  
no no no  
he is the one they them  
from the distance the bombs  
keeping us always out of sight  
inside death and out of sight  

Were you afraid that the horse  
would show the world the near future  
three thousand cruise missiles in the first hour  
spinning into Baghdad  
ten thousand Guernicas  
spinning into Baghdad  
from the sky  

Were you afraid of my art  
what I am still saying  
more than sixty five years later  
the story still being told  
the vision still dangerous  
the light bulb still hanging  
like an eye from the dead  
my eye that looks at you from the dead  

beware  

beware the eye of the child  
in the dark  

you will join us  
the child and I  
the horse and the mother  
here on the other side  

you will join us soon  
you will journey here  
as we all do  

is that why you were  
so afraid of me?  

join us  
and spend the rest of eternity  
watching  
watching  
watching  
next to us  
next to the remote dead  
not only of Iraq  
not only of  

is that why you were  
so afraid of that eye?  

watching  
your own eyes sewn open wide looking  
at the world you left behind  

there is nothing else to do  
with our time  

sentenced to watch  
and watch  
by our side  

until there will be no Guernicas left  
until the living understand  

and then, Mr. Secretary,  
and then  

a world with no Guernicas  

and then  
yes then  
you and I  
yes then

we can rest  

you and I and the covered child