Frequently, evil is ignorant, stupid, mindless, and repetitious (consider Dante’s Hell, where, except for Dante and Virgil, all movement is circular and repetitious), which makes it easy to identify, as is the case with our president. His vocabulary, symbolically, is 100 one-syllable words: bad, good, sad, big, fair, not fair, best, worst, brief, bleach, etc. When he learns a really big word like hydroxychloroquine, he tries to act knowledgeable, and he immediately promotes it, regardless of the consequences. “I’m taking it; you should too!” Well, if I were poet laureate of this administration, I would submit the following verses:
POTUS, Prince of Hell
Inveterate liar, bully and thug,
President, Potus, smirking and smug!
How can we stand another four years,
When his orange face summons nightmares and fears?
Under the orange is a reptilian mask,
Hissing and vicious, with only one task,
To crown himself King in a vast Forever;
For love of himself, his eternal endeavor!
St. Augustine defines two cities, characterized by two different loves: the Heavenly City, whose citizens are united by their love of God; and, the Earthly City, whose inhabitants are defined, like Donald Trump, by love of Self. Dante subscribed to the same distinction, two eternal realities, Hell, the City of Dis, where its inhabitants have rejected God in their refusal to repent and thus are left forever with only the sin they have chosen, their love of self and its desires; and Heaven where the citizens who have repented their sins (everyone, see the wonderful Mt. Purgatory), forever love God, the Holy Trinity, and enjoy Him forever.
It is important to note here, in all fairness to our authors, and myself as poet laureate (of Hell) for the moment, that both believe that as long as there is life, there is time to repent (see Dante’s Purgatory, Canto Five, Buoncante da Montefeltro; his moment of death repentance was enough to make him a present/future citizen of Heaven, following Dante’s imagery).
There is an interesting exception to that principle that as long as there is time, repentance is possible. At the very bottom of Hell, in the final circle, Dante and Virgil find a soul whom Dante knows is still walking the streets of Florence. The principle at work there is that this soul is so evil (think Hitler or Stalin or a serial killer of sorts like Charles Manson, who has never shown any evidence of being sorry for his crimes) that his soul falls immediately to the lowest circle of Hell and a real demon takes over his body. The insight, I think, that Dante is imaging there is the immediacy of what Dante is seeing: sin happening, on Earth, in the earthly City, now. All the other souls that Dante has met or will meet are dead, their earthly choices eternalized. Once the sinner dies, repentance is no longer possible. Time is for repentance. Earth, Now, is essentially purgatorial: repent and grow in grace while there is time.
And, for a closing Phone Poem, this time about one of the denizens of POTUS’ White House, illustrating the principle that evil is frequently ignorant:
COVID-19
”COVID-19, no wonder it’s bad,”
Says cool Kelly Ann, looking proper and mad;
”It’s had 18 tries to get it just right;
Thus 19 can kill us; it’s not a fair fight!”
Microphones off!
Apparently, she thought the number was counting the preceding viruses before 19 and not the year. It’s an example of one of those instances where ignorance would do well to remain silent; apparently, that is hard for politicians to do when they see an inviting microphone. In full disclosure, I wasn’t certain what the 19 stood for either; however, I would have found out before jumping into the fray. Kelly Ann, though, has never been one not to defend one of Donald Trump’s blatant lies with a lie of her own, or so I seem to remember. In any case, full disclosure, those quotes attributed to her are of my own invention. The idea, however, is, I seem to remember, her very own. Hell, like Donald Trump’s White House, is full of liars. Here we remember Michael Flynn, etc. etc. etc.
Thanks to Joel Pett for this marvelous political cartoon, propped up on Simon’s under-pad. (5/28/20; The Herald-Leader)