The Ice Man Cometh

 

Remember the sound the carts and the

horses' hooves made trundling down

the street, and the knife sharpener 

calling out to the housewives to get

out there with their knives? I can't

recall if the man selling blocks of ice

came daily, but likely he did, using these

huge pincers to carry the already melting

blocks into kitchens for deposit in ice boxes.

We kids used to hang around grabbing at

ice shards at the back of the cart; if the 

vendor could, he's give us a good cuff

to the back of our heads. The horse would

leave steaming balls, lifting his tail in

disdain at us as they carried on to the

next street. These were the days when

the Salvation Army made its presence

known on street corners, in uniform

unsmiling, serious faces, shiny brass

instruments belting out sacred music in

endlessly repeated performances before

marching on. Remember those times?

I do. Kind of dates me. Yes it does.

But I remember the fat old wrinkled

Nonna next door forever knitting 

stomach-churning puce-coloured 

mittens and caps and scarves for the

boys over at the front lines in France 

and Belgium and Italy. I do remember

all of that, and more, much more. Like

the little house down the street with

no bathroom facilities, but there was

a little shed out back. Where we lived

renting the upstairs flat there was a

bathroom shared by another single

tenant, our family of five, and the

owner's family of two boys older

than me who would sometimes trap

me in that bathroom. I recall, acutely.

Oh, you're leaving, already, none of

your own memories to share? Pity.

 

 

Afflicting Predator

 

We call him Dufus though his name

really is Rufus. Substituting the

"R" for a "D" more closely reflects

that dog's compulsive propensities.

Our two little sibling pups have made

the acquaintance of many of

their species in their yet-brief

lifetime. Their cognitive capacity

enables them to recognize which

among them are friends and which

constitute a problem. Dufus

represents a multiple problem

and so when we come across

our old acquaintance on our

woodland trails, like us walking

the newer generation of canine

companions, we keep an eye on Dufus.

As we stand and chat our little female

pleads to be lifted into my arms;

this from a blithe spirit with no

patience ordinarily to being carried.
Which leaves her brother vulnerable

to Dufus's typical manoeuvre where

he corners, then backs our little guy

off-trail hard against a tree trunk

while steadily gaining the advantage

his large muscular body sneaking

over the small silently quailing

back of our fellow prodding us to

swoop like eagles to extricate the

mouse from the elephantine

rutting intention of Dufus.

 

 

 

 

Hats? Gloves? Socks? Table legs?

Computer mouse? Zippers ... destroyed.

Books ... masticated thoughtfully.

They are ingenious in their constant

infuriating habits discovering

myriad ways to infuriate us with

their insistence on chewing foreign

objects not known to render taste

or nutritional value to any living

creature. A result of which is often

injury and sick bay. Yet to scold 

these creatures is an injustice for

they seek to earn our affection and

do so not inappropriately by posing

as little laughable clowns. They are 

an astounding pair of small black imps

impervious to instruction they view

no value in obeying. And they

represent an "in" crowd all their

own. They have their focus and

their inestimable values for they 

are incorrigibly infatuated with

impulsive inquisitiveness; in the

process completely disarming us.

 

 

Never Forgotten

This is the day of sacred trust
when the international community
has pledged to observe the
unspeakable tragedy of a people
whose presence on Earth was
selectively extinguished by state
decree and inhumanity on a
genocidal scale of unmitigated
horror that left a postwar world
reeling in disbelief. Never to forget
forever on guard, a recurrence
forbidden by all that is human
sacred and history-haunting. This
is the day that a gracious and
smiling Pope welcomes the head
of state of another Aryan nation
that threatens the existence of a
Jewish state, with annihilation
by yet another triumphalist 
ideology. While Europe, the 
charnel house of its Jews, now
awaits anxiously the imminent
opportunity to open the doors
of trade and profit to that
same nuclear-driven travesty.

 

Yiddish Gothic

Shtetl-born, the era of the
transition from Polish pogroms
to the Aryan Nazi Third Reich
establishing its death camps where
no inconvenient furor of protest
was anticipated, the presciently
few sailed off to America and
there finding no streets paved
with gold, men took humble
employment in the trade of
peddling; broken furniture,
trinkets, schmata, and live
chickens from farm to market.
Hard work for pittance pay,
while women laboured in
sweat shops now exploiting
poverty-stricken women in
the Philippines. He was the stern
unbending paterfamilias their
children enraged easily and at
their own risk. She was the gossipy
meek balabusta vainly stretching
hope to make ends meet. Their
struggle to survive taught their
offspring what the parents knew
by experience; the world was an
unlovely place with few beckoning
opportunities. The second generation
adeptly grasped those elusive
chances fatalistically inuring
themselves against failure
attracting to their worldly success
the envy and the enmity of the 
latest crop of anti-Semitic haters.

 

The Father The Son

 

They lean muscle   and sinew
into their work
minds free to wander
tongues hanging silent
in the roofs of their mouths.

Companions   they find comfort
in close presence
each teacher to the other
wordlessly
          carefully
full of care for the moment.

They are masters of the mind
but yet lovers of hand's efforts
they dexterously play ideas
one on the other
                casually
cut wood to fit delineated form
sand and smooth
            shave and stain
two jacks of variable trades.

 

 

Dunderheaded

 

Dunderheaded

Children subjected to medical experiments in Auschwitz.
[from The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, ed. Yitzhak Arad. New York: Macmillan, 1990]

Dunderheaded

It's a good trick if you can do it
and you can do it with winsome
sunny ways, placing the skills of
a thespian-born to the tedious task
of empathizing upon the grave
subject of genocide. The mullahs
of Iran set a rictus of scorn as they
contest the very notion of their
Aryan brethren plastering the
Holocaust into history while vowing
their effort will be far more effective.
On this solemn day of remembrance
Europe hastens to enrich its coffers
with Iranian trade and investment
just as surely as Europe's soil was
enriched with the byproduct of
carbonized Jewish lives consumed
in the Third Reich's crematoria.
But Canada has a junior Trudeau whose
official posting of commemoration
slides elegantly past awkward mention 
of Jews, while fulsomely lamenting
man's inhumanity to man. "On this
day", his statement waxes eloquently,
"we pay tribute to the memory of
the millions of victims murdered
during the Holocaust. We honour
those who survived atrocities at the
hands of the Nazi regime, and
welcome their courageous stories
of hope and perseverance", naming none
lest one give unintended offence.

On this day, we pay tribute to the memory of the millions of victims murdered during the Holocaust. We honour those who survived atrocities at the hands of the Nazi regime, and welcome their courageous stories of hope and perseverance.
The Holocaust is a stark reminder of the dangers and risks of allowing hate, prejudice, and discrimination to spread unchallenged. It also reminds us that silence must never be an option when humanity is threatened.
As we pause to educate ourselves and our families on the bitter lessons of the Holocaust, we also strengthen our resolve to work with domestic and international partners to continue defending human rights and condemning intolerance. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Intrusion

 

 

Man proposes nature disposes and so

should your plans for a briskly cold

winter day include a saunter

through frozen winter trails

to touch nature's raw mysterious base

yet be aware the forest has its own rules

of engagement. In the brief hush of

twilight when stealthy dusk begins

to infiltrate the fastness of that

elemental ecology the soft twitter

of birds as they settle for the night

the last scurry of squirrels as they

make for their nests prepares the

forest for daylight's expulsion where

above its canopy a crescent moon appears

wind no longer rustles dry leaves

the surrounding trees stand straight

as sentries questioning your presence

and all too soon your penetration within

that intimately closed system's unwelcome.

 

 

Unrepentant Guardians

 

 

One could claim them to be models of good 

behaviour even though such a statement is a 

bit of a stretch but they are endearing little 

creatures and as child proxies fulfill almost all 

expectations in companionship, entertainment 

and a focus for our parental void in our dotage. 

Two very small, black and furry, wide-eyed

Poodles intelligent and stubborn, devoted and 

demanding. Our thoughts are to provide them 

with security and opportunities to view the world 

as their own and they do vocally advertise their 

presence while leaving hints wherever they've been. 

We are however left troubled by their aversion to

the presence of others of their kind to whom

their hostility is beyond palpable and gives us

reason to question whether we have gone a tad

too far in patterning our little charges after

ourselves, leading to soul-searching introspection:

is it conceivable that we subconsciously emit

a similar, quieter air of resistance in the presence

of others like ourselves, or are our little charges

repaying in like kind their version of security?

 

 

The Comfort of Love

 

 

The soul is the essence of our existence

for we are what it is, even as it reflects what

we are; our consciousness of all that we see

hear and cling to, it is our working mind

our reminder of our being, incorporeal

an unknown life-essence, an impulse and

primal compulsion. If it can be seen anywhere

that place can be deep within the looking

glass of the eyes, ethereal and haunting.

The eyes of a child reflect surprise and

curiosity, trust and need, the soul emerging

to become what it will. As those eyes

record what they see they augment that

soul in a compendium of experience and

emotion the innocence replaced by other

ineffable reflections of humanity redolent

of hope and disappointment, regret and

self-remonstration, the fortunate among

them enveloped in the comfort of love. 

 

Leaving You Mute And Bemused

 

The outcome is predictable when experience 

and reasonable intelligence inform us of what 

to expect when we perform an oft-repeated

action. This kind of inductive reasoning is 

simply a matter  of routine observation with

nothing whatever in common to a predictive 

sense out of the ordinary. This is where the we 

named the subconscious moves into the arcane. 

Where our minds roam about in spheres we 

really have no idea exist much less that some 

peculiar sense obliquely advises us of something 

yet to occur. As when for example you think 

of someone or an event just as a sudden random

thought, unrelated to anything, someone you 

haven't seen or heard from in a long time

or some event that occurred at a remove in time

and to your astonishment (or blase acceptance)

that person moves once again into your life or

that event recurs leaving you mute and bemused.

 

The Politics of Cynicism

 

 

What a conundrum it is that most people

think of themselves as discerning of human

character and of course observation and

experience is a great aid in leading people

to the conclusion that the must untrustworthy

of professions is that of politicians, yet even

knowing this they obligingly vote for the most

charismatic of candidates who are blatantly 

egotistical, accomplished liars, hypocritical

authoritarian, rapacious and manipulative to

the end degree. With rare exceptions politicians 

seem to be born to the role, gifted with requisite

characteristics yet claim their sole motivation

is inspired by service to the public weal. They

have no real need to practice to deceive since 

it evolves so naturally within their psyches.

Despising the typecast candidate, the public

peers through their rose-coloured lenses to

distinguish their choice as dedicated and oh so

different, then when in office repent at leisure.

 

 

The Human Dilemma

 

 

What if the source of humanity's inability 

to improve itself and leave its baser instincts 

behind is lodged in its collective desire to be

better than it knows it is, feeling that it can be 

better and failing abjectly leading to conflict

 and misery for all involved, encouraging among 

the disaffected an errant embrace of sociopathy

as a more direct route making gains for the 

human element in minority to realize their own 

aspirations for chaos to reign. A bizarre defect 

within the majority which yearns for order and 

equality equating honeyed words of promise 

from those seeking power then producing nothing

of value but for their own ends to be achieved

antithetical to good government and public

usefulness. While the rare blunt-spoken candidate 

persuading the electorate he can deliver good 

for society that others have failed to do does 

just that in masterful strokes of judicious reasoning 

from a persona whose personal failings in decency 

mask the successes he is responsible for, leading

to his downfall and the return of the poseurs

producing ill government and the reality of 

failure. Choices so flawed and ill-starred

peace prizes are awarded to warmongers.

 

 

His Story

 

 

Long before he became a streetwise child orphan

wandering back alleyways among others like himself

he knew deprivation without knowing what it 

was other than existing in a state of perpetual hunger.

Hard to imagine what he thought of agricultural

work shipped from Europe to North America at the

turn of the century to become a farm labourer along 

with others, a philanthropic plan to offer homeless youth

new opportunities, indentured for years until they paid

their passage. He laboured and endured then was free

to wander the streets of another city as an adult no

longer hungry. Meeting another refugee married and

had children living penuriously but free from racist

harassment. Never exposed to formal education he

inhaled knowledge with experience, devoured books

proclaimed himself a 'self-made man', eager to engage 

in debate at any opportunity, any subject, shuddered 

at the rounding up of Europe's Jews knowing that 

might have been his fate. A man stunted in physique 

but capable of  hard work, he discovered others from 

his home town, played a tuba in an amateur orchestra

sent his children to parochial schools so they would 

know from whence they came. Fate sought him all too

soon, he protesting the while to the final stage of life 

for which he was destined despite the delay on the way 

to carry him to a lingering and all-too-brief farewell.

 

 

Revealing Hypocrisy's Faultlines

 

 

Granted, parody is a rebuke

not a cure holding up to

public ridicule

those who pose as righteously

progressive selectively

harnessing their efforts

toward sanctimonious morality

expressed in humanitarian

terms of reference 

while targeting the offences

committed by those struggling to

exist against the efforts of

others to extinguish their rights of

existence committing themselves

to existential defense and in so doing

offending those unconvinced they

should while claiming the offensive

acts of self-protection victimize those

whose goal is to slaughter in gain of

territorial advantage. The ripostes of

parody shredding the pretense of

neutral judgement for when all else

fails comic revelations of issues

injurious to reality have their value in

the light of clarity and laughter.

 

O, Ye Believers

 

What greater assurance of well-placed trust 

could there possibly be than in the  authority 

of a government for which lack of trust merits 

execution? Yet to withhold that trust one sins 

for it is a betrayal of the divine powers and 

presence in all of existence of God Almighty 

and the faithful know this by word of the Almighty's 

presence on Earth to whom the authority was 

granted to represent that most sacred of spirits 

that rules all that is and all that will ever be. 

It is in the name of the Almighty that this nation's 

theistic rulers proclaim fatwas, form and arm 

violent belligerents and instruct them to strike 

the enemies of Islam wherever they live; threatens 

the existence of another religion's haven on Earth 

and punishes to the death would-be usurpers to 

their power structure while authorizing their 

divinely-inspired military to maim and murder 

other nations' dispirited faithful in a spirit of 

helpfulness whose ultimate goal is to guide 

others to the path of divine righteousness. 

 

A Word To The Wise

 

 

Reserve high expectations for yourself since it's 

perfectly all right to expect yourself to rise to 

occasions as needed but avoid at all costs hanging 

those expectations on the shoulders of others 

in particular those who hang stethoscopes over 

their shoulders as a proud statement of a long 

tradition of pride in giving comfort and aid when

required to those in need. Ah, but we live in an 

entirely different era now, gone the time when 

medics shared the trenches with those soldiering on

through illness and disease. Where once MDs

were skilled in general medicine and light surgery

they focus now on noting symptoms for accurate

diagnoses to enable them to shuffle patients off

to the eventual attention of specialists. And good

luck on both fronts; accuracy of diagnoses and

specialist appointments. Where once your general 

practitioner set fractures, gave stitches and shots

of critical vaccines, in the age of COVID it is the

neighbourhood pharmacy to turn to. Where once

an appointment to 'see' one's family doctor was a

routine practise, a reservation is now required for a

telephone consultation, full stop. Where once a

doctor insisted on seeing a patient before committing

to diagnosis and prescription, it can now all be done

remotely. Your cardiologist won't hesitate to send 

you for a routine EKG and if you balk at exposure

the telephone 'consultation' reservation is cancelled.

Nothing to see here folks, time to move on....for

whatever it is ailing you it will either resolve itself

by natural means or simply put, nothing will avail.

 

 

Herstory

 

She is now in her mid-80s tending from 

time to time to recall sometimes vividly 

sometimes faintly her evolving moments of

realization, how tormented she suddenly felt

in a strange bed with overwhelming thoughts 

of the enveloping darkness of death.The panic

felt when her mother took her to a daycare

operated by strange women in religious habit.

Her loneliness as a child and swift grasp

of reading and the magic inherent in language

as solace from a threatening world where once 

a young black girl with intent approached in an

inner-city alleyway and her spurt of assurances 

she was no enemy, her parents taught her so and 

she was spared. Her yearning for green spaces 

where to the child she was, parks were heaven. 

The sad sense of abandonment sent to a summer 

camp for underprivileged children. The ominous

doubt overhearing her parents speak of Jews and 

death camps. The horror she felt hearing her father

say he didn't want to die, but  he did anyway. Her 

resignation when her mother convinced a garment 

factory head her young daughter would be useful 

on the factory floor. The dreams she had approaching 

her juvenile years of meeting a youth like herself 

who would become her everlasting companion in life

and she did and nothing was evermore impossible.

 

 

The Spirit Within

 

 

There have been no recent developments in

human behaviour unknown to the ancients

who analyzed how humankind dissolved its

humanity in venomous paroxysms of envy

fear and hatred of the other. As a prescription

for peace they warned against excesses of

reaction to the deep pools of dysfunction

between tribes and faith in the eternal essence

of omniscient, omnipresent, jealous and

controlling spirits. Among them surely

there were some wise beyond their time

who understood that it is within each soul

that the controlling spirit exists to be ignored

at one's peril to be sent spiralling into that

special hell of misery draining the goblet

of bitter gall transforming life into an

unending blizzard of blame and victimhood.

 

 

Deciphering the Unknowable

 

 

Nature does not measure itself by time

it is beyond time, a human construct

a continuum by which humanity

measures existence and all that is

above all lifespans, events and evolution.

Nature has no need of examining itself

it is timeless and forever evolving yet

to humans time's essence is their life's

yardstick from birth to death. It is as 

though time itself controls the universe

an offspring of nature failing to recognize 

her own. That too is a particular conceit 

of humanity, that nature and all it signifies 

can be interpreted and understood by

humanity's elite minds through the medium

of science, nature's very own toolkit. It

is mankind dabbling in nature's laboratory.