EMPIRE AND ITS ANTIDOTE

This poem is inspired by the painting ‘Fighting Monsters’ by Christopher G. Kempton

 

Our world is on fire

And we are watching 

Watching this lethal dance with apocalypse

 

Red and black

Marks of war

Splattered paint

Marking Ares’ door

 

Our world is on a precipice

A portal to barbarism

Beyond all we remember

 

Monsters of hubris

Monsters of greed

Monsters of empire and annihilation

 

This is a war to dismember a nation

And it could become a hurricane

A tsunami of nuclear proportions

 

Sociopathic narcissism

Toxic megalomania

These forces produce this moment

Like demons unchained

 

We need an exorcism

A collective cleansing

The opposite of fratricide and genocide

A global karmic spiritual rebirth

Reconnecting with our common humanity

 

We need to summon our power

Our capacity for transformative imagination

An emphatic choice other than which empire to serve

 

These colors interweave

They refract and recombine

Conjuring the gift of the sacred

Transcendent love as an antidote to empire

 

Our ballistic exorcism arises

Courageous resistance to imperial conquest

Fuses with a rising of the Russian people

Rising to oppose their autocratic dictator

 

The brave intensity of this painting draws me in

Vibrant and somber hues ricochet through my mind

Emotional shrapnel lodge in my spirit body

 

I zone in

I narrow my focus

And see a vector to the human heart

 

This is a poem about empire

But also about its antidote

In these fierce colors I find both rage and hope

I see our creative human essence

A spiritual practice transcending battle lines

 

A fire of resistance to empire

A fire of faith, love, and solidarity

–These are images of a painting titled ‘Fighting Monsters’ by Christopher G. Kempton >> works available through Gtfineart.com >> @christophergkemptonfineart >> Chris graciously invited this poem as an articulation of the spirit of the painting.

–BYPO PHOENIX c)2022

Share

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.