Still Life With Red Bull’s Head, Paris, 1938
by Diana Pinckney
after Picasso
The bull from Guernica returns, this time red
with blood and the eyes of one who has seen
families murdered in their village markets.
He has fought in Spain’s bull-rings, been pierced
by picadors, has raged at taunts from men
flashing capes red as his wounds. Crowds scream
for death, his or the matador’s, depending on the day,
the mood. Now, Picasso has impaled the head on a spike
that rests on green and gray blocks. The background
painted blue as the sky on a sunny day at the Arena.
An artist’s brushes and palette separate the bull
from a lone white candle. Does it burn for the artist,
the bombed children? Or the bull himself,
witness to war. And all man can do to man.
“‘Still Life With Red Bull’s Head, Paris, 1938,’ in my opinion goes to the very heart of Picasso and his association/identification with the bull. The bulls in the Spanish areas of his childhood, youth, and on through old age. The bull appears in numerous works of Picasso’s art. His famous Guernica is only one example. The bull’s head painting was done in 1938, a year after the German bombing of the small town of Guernica. And so the bull sees all in Picasso’s eyes.” —Diana Pinckney
Diana Pinckney’s work has appeared in Green Mountains Review, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Arroyo, RHINO, Cave Wall, NC Literary Review, Nine Mile Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review and other journals and anthologies. She has led workshops for the N.C. Poetry Society, the Charlotte Writer’s Club, the S.C. Writer’s Network and Charlotte Literary Center for the Arts. Author of 5 collections of poetry, including The Beast and The Innocent (2015), Pinckney is the winner of The 2010 EKPHRASIS Magazine Prize, Atlanta Review’s 2012 International Poetry Prize, and the Press 53 Prime Number 2018 Award. She is currently at work on a series about the art of Picasso and Edward Hopper. In addition, Pinckney has a new book coming out in late spring, which is a collection of poems about her daughter, who was an artist.