New Stepfather, by Lee Stockdale

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1937

New Stepfather
   
Overrated! rants Ted,
new stepfather I barely know,
who challenges me: Go see for yourself, 
how Picasso 
duped the world, 
painting screaming mouths agape,
heads beheaded, terror horse,
black and white of angled bones,
every tooth of every jaw
biting and digesting war.

Picasso won’t allow it into Spain
as long as Franco’s government is in power.
In MoMA since 1939,
in the death room no one talks. 
It’s like a church or sepulcher. 
Tourists, art lovers, business people, 
and the merely curious stand transfixed 
by human pain and animal. 

I want to be more moved to show 
I’m not a rube and know good art,
but I agree with Ted 
and this 
is how our bond begins.

Lee Stockdale

​Lee Stockdale has worked in many restaurants, as a house painter, in a car wash, as a New York City cab driver, and as a US Army Command Judge Advocate. His collection of poems, Gorilla, is forthcoming in the fall of 2022, and is available now for (discounted!) pre-publication order from Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Lee and his wife, a potter, live in the Western North Carolina mountains where they ride bikes, practice hot yoga, and feed the wild turkeys.