ART NOT WAR

[Guest page by Tonalkalli]

Office of Homeland Security
By the Sarcastic Fringehead

“In troubled times such as these,
art should comfort, not disturb,”
the authorities decreed, appointing
the first Secretary of Aesthetic Affairs
for the New Regime. Museums
and libraries close shop, their once-open doors
reviled as anachronisms of a naïve era.
“To protect freedom, freedom must
be sacrificed.”
The Secretary is Thomas Kinkade. Sales rise.
Guidelines are sent to the galleries:
consumer spending must be encouraged—
Warhol’s soup cans,
Cezanne’s mouthwatering oranges.
“The enemy knows nothing of art.”
Jasper Johns’ flags,
of course. More of the same.
The ignorant multitudes
receive showers of winter bombs.
Multimedia impressionist revival blurs perceptions.
On cable TV, the Painter of Light™ instructs his disciples
in the delicate palette of the nuclear sunset.

Guernica
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)