Forgiveness Prayer

11 X 17 Inches
2-color Screen Print
Signed 
Created in 2023

$30

This artwork is a prayer for offering and requesting forgiveness. I’ve written a few verses to accompany some beautiful lyrics by one of my favorite bands, Ween.

The imagery features a mask of Mahakala from Tibetan Buddhism, a Persian-style depiction of Buraq, and a miserable, prostrating, demon monk in a European style. In Greek Mythology, Argus was a god with eyes covering his whole body, able to see in all directions. This made him an ideal guard. Ween seems to be using him as a character more like a Buddhist deity and I’ve added to that. In this passage, Argus laments that people are more motivated by their own fear than they are by love and by potential. 

Here’s the poem, which is the same as the text written in the print:

Whispering acquittal into ordered chambers

The words cluster in these cavities

An unfamiliar patch of sky sags

Behind our wilted shoulder.

We unmutter our accounting.

Swirling with visions of man’s confusion

All of the work, done just to appease him

The Argus he cries, “Though love has its place in the sun,

It’s only man’s fear that carries him on.”

Sulk in remorse for now

Tomorrow we stand before ourselves and repeal.

Amen

Ravi Zupa and Ween.