Three paintings and two texts

 

Star flower and king ego pursued by skeleton 

Paradise Now

 

Behold Neuroplastic Man!

The city is the soul writ large

the city is the cosmos writ small 

The city is a transmigrant soul

cycling through cycles, circles and spirals 

evolving and revolving through the generations and regenerations

the tragedies and farces of history

Our cities will be training grounds, the farcical dictator says

Chicago, Portland, Memphis, Philadelphia, New York

are training grounds

What are we training for?

What uncivil war?

The real war is invisible the real war is in the soul and the city is the soul writ large

The enemy is coming with guns and tanks and boots on the ground 

 AI bomber shitzkriegs and crypto currency scams 

nationalist idols and corporate control 

While Mammon eats at the law like a brain worm feasting on a lunatic

pardoning the guilty and incarcerating the innocent 

Bulldozing the People’s House to build a big ballroom for the naked king’s big ugly balls

I watch the political theater on my screen unsure of what it means or what matters 

I watch ICE agents brutalize people in their homes 

I see millions take to the streets to shout NO KINGS

and take to voting booths to vote YES DEMOCRACY

Greetings from the democratic socialist republic of New York.

I see Lady Liberty on Canal Street giving the finger to fascism,

enlightening the world.

Let those who are without guilt throw the first sandwich.

Don J in Hell

The movie ends with the White House in flames and the President on the roof. 

Like Cagney in White Heat.

Top of the world, Ma!

He was trying to burn the Epstein files in the Oval Office but goofed and spilled the lighter fluid the fire spread 

This is not a good ending, not morally good 

Maybe a good ending but a bad end

Conflict between moral goodness and a good story. Poets vs philosophers in Plato’s Republic, Homer vs Pythagoras

Poets make the gods look as bad as us, but ultimate reality is Good 

Even the Biblical poets sometimes project a wrathful deity 

I want justice for my enemy and mercy for me 

Lord have mercy

I need to believe that even a malignant narcissist is redeemable even if I don’t want to believe it 

Because I need to believe that even I am redeemable 

I need to believe our nation is redeemable 

The biblical teaching is that a holy land is redeemable no matter how far it strays 

Even Nineveh was redeemable, to Jonah’s chagrin, so America must be also.

The President is concerned about the afterlife, he said

thinking about mortality, he says

We laugh at him because he doubts he will get to heaven 

Not that we are certain about ourselves 

Not getting invited to Dick Cheney’s funeral is the best news to happen to him this month.

He bombs boats in the Caribbean but hasn’t yet started a real war, but there is time 

Cheney started real wars, Big Time.

Big Time was Dubya’s nickname for Cheney

The President has his own wars and we all live inside his head 

He strips protections for the endangered human species

As the world burns

There is time, perhaps, to negotiate which circle of the Inferno he will be assigned to.

How many millions of reincarnations will it take for him to recognize that the wrathful deities that torment him are projections of his ugly soul? 

He needs to believe his lawyers can work out his karma for him or at least delay for an eternity his appearance before the Judgment Seat

He sits in the holding cell

Since the beginning of Time he has been sitting in this holding cell

What are you doing here?

Isn’t there some other place you should be? Something you could be doing? 

There seems to have been a mistake, you say. I was supposed to be happy by now. I have everything I want but I don’t have time.

Then I will ask you another question 

What are you doing now?

Wasn’t there something you should’ve been doing back then, when you were young?

Can wasted time be recycled?

Can a wasted life be redeemed?

Is America going to Hell?