Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

Start with an empty canvas

Sketch in broad outline the forms of

men women and children

Dip into the unconsciousness well of your own

disowned darkness

with a wide brush and

strain the strangers with the sinister hue

of the shadow

Trace onto the face of the enemy the greed,

Hatred, carelessness you dare not claim as

Your own

Obscure the sweet individuality of each face

Erase all hints of the myriad loves, hopes,

fears that play through the kaleidoscope of

every infinite heart

Twist the smile until it forms the downward

arc of cruelty

Strip flesh from bone until only the

abstract skeleton of death remains

Exaggerate each feature until man is

metamorphosed into beast, vermin, insect

Fill in the background with malignant

figures from ancient nightmares – devils,

demons, myrmidons of evil

When your icon of the enemy is complete

you will be able to kill without guilt,

slaughter without shame

The thing you destroy will have become

merely an enemy of God, an impediment

to the secret dialectic of history