This poem is inspired by the painting ‘Fighting Monsters’ by Christopher G. Kempton
Our world is on fire
And we are mortified
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
