Beyond Racism

It has been studied to death and yet

it refuses to die. As heritage moments go

this one has quite the distinguished record

working from the present back toward

antiquity, an ancient malediction affecting

wide-sweeping geographic locations

their populations steeped deep in the anomie

of hateful disaffection of a particular group

living among them but not of them

their very presence eliciting scorn and

claims of psychic violence exemplified

by a people aware of the friability of their

barely tolerated position, seeking to isolate

themselves from spite and harm, becoming

as close to invisible as possible without 

entirely disappearing, fearful of provoking

more pogroms as expressions of the esteem

in which they are held by the greater surrounding

population whose passions are known to 

spark by a sole irascible claim of Jewish evil.

Creation, Time and Space

Creation, Time and Space

An imposing cathedral of
unparalleled beauty sheathed in
crystalline grandeur lifts its
imperious grace to the ceiling
of the sky velvet with approaching
night, a halo of moon and the
boldness of stars impassively
observing a landscape unlike
their own of frozen gases and
ancient minerals. The one below
with its living atmosphere
responds to the distance of its
sponsor-sun in a frigid pause
of the clamour of growing
things unlike the inert nothingness
of cold and distant space. This
most familiar place of time and
seasons, liveliness and curiosity
a highly specialized experiment
by nature in randomized creative
adventure. And so, her creations
look up and peer beyond the
darkness of the unknown, certain
of discovery and revelation.

 

Ifs, Ands, Buts

 

Yes of course I love my near neighbours

and I love to know that I am surrounded

by those worthy of my love, so it is not

all my neighbours who draw from me the

emotions of appreciation and fondness

only those who view others with a degree

of interest and compassion, who will take

the trouble to befriend and to offer themselves

when the need is apparent. As for the others

who scurry into their little caves looking

neither left nor right, who evince no notice

of the presence of others viewing them merely

as background noise preferring to be oblivious

and withdrawn whose presence is that of a

shape-shifting professional whose language

is one of exclusion entirely lacking emotional

investment in the affairs of those around them

with sterile lives of self-full-stop, they have

no need of my love and I none of theirs.

 

 

Abbreviating Life

Abbreviating Life

It's the truculent truth is it not?
This is no rehearsal, it's here
it's brief and it's final, one
lifespan so swift it leaves
spinning heads to wonder. No
argument though, you cannot
have it all. Not as simple as
making choices. Some harbour
scant curiosity, satisfied with
mundane routine, certifying
they will live a long, quite
ordinary life. Those propelled
consumed and intent on a search
for deeper meaning in existence
those whose senses are excited
and exalted by approaching
the farthest reaches of the world
looking aspirationally at the
vastness of the universe, yearning
to reach and to touch the outer
limits of endurance have bartered
longevity for experience in 
reaching beyond the ordinary.
They spiral inevitably beyond
any but nature's control. It is
they and their ephemeral vision
unafraid of venturing toward
that dark abyss and in the process
willingly abbreviating life.

 

The Rain-Sodden Forest

 

A deep humidity smothers the atmosphere

in the valley of the ravined forest

where the stream bisecting its landscape

roils and burbles with the mud-turgid

excess of rain that fell heavily overnight

coursing down its raceway to the great

river beyond. Mist rises in a silvery veil

touching the lower reaches of the forest

trees still dripping from the rainstorms

that even now carried by dark clouds

overhead threaten to resume. All is still in

the forest, no chattering of birds, small

mammals comfortable in their dens, averse

to emerging on this dark, dank day near

summer. Yet the glory of the verdant forest

glows in a mystique of light source absent

the sun, bright colour radiating everywhere.

The Exemplary Leader

Leader of a free Democracy that certainly deserves 

better he is a man of unabashed liberal progressiveness 

dedicated to the spirit of equality and the advance of 

the middle class with a puzzling affinity for the power 

of dictatorships. Skilled in deception a charlatan 

and poseur, convincing the electorate that he is their 

man in Parliament he garners votes by appealing 

to the immigrant demographic in a nation built by 

immigrants. His, he declares is a post-nationalist 

country absent heritage, tradition, culture, in favour 

of recognizing Canada as a nation celebrating

ethnic diversity in language, heritage and culture.

A man devoted to extending apologies for wrongs

committed by previous administrations long before

his birth, for the payback of vote-impressive 

loyalty. Aversive to the end degree of admitting his

own responsibility in errant government, failing in

his executive administration of a muddled nation.

This is a prime minister who dressed in blackface

for a lark, but who declares Canada a racist country

a prime minister who attempted to subvert justice

and in the process fired the nation's first Indigenous

minister of justice, a prime minister who declares

himself a feminist but is not above forcing himself

on women, a prime minister whose ingratiating antics

become an embarrassment for Canada, a prime minister

who cannot scatter tax paid grants funding for votes

in a wide-enough arc fast enough to beggar the economy

a prime minister who like the proverbial benevolent

dictator rewards friends at the public trough, a prime

example of a political dilettante who seeks the

public limelight and adores being the center of

fawning attention by a public transfixed by the glamour

of a youthful demeanor and a pretentious facade.

 

 

The Political Food Chain

That assurance so beloved by the feeble

minded that 'we are all born equal' is but a

risible canard, for nothing could be further

from reality. There are ethnic groups and cultures

known to distinguish themselves by their average

cerebral power and among them are Chinese

the equal and more to any in the arts and sciences

so the bad faith exhibited by their current leaders

represents an assault against the intellectual

integrity of its peoples' acumen, talents and

pride in self. Beijing practices an odd version

of natural selection whereby big fish are wont

to swallow little fish, the big prosper the little

are their living fodder. The big fish that is China

labours under a delusion of global command and

control, ingratiating itself through largess while

purloining others' intellectual property rights

along with their natural resources to fully and

completely capture the market on domination.