The Shifting Mass

Human habitation is shifting busily
reshaping itself. On the map there is as yet
no indication of this massive migration of
population but in time the physical shifts
will inevitably give birth to cultural
social upheavals of a magnitude not seen
since human habitation took thousands of
years to form and mass and establish
communities which are even now in the
process of departing established communities
long considered stable as a mass neurosis
a massive panic, hysteria and fundamental
rejection of the human condition whereby
masses are persecuted, dominated, their
freedom and opportunities denied, where
civil wars and brutal dictators enjoy their
powerful wages of studied tyranny reign. 
Those stable, civilized countries long practising
the social politics of inclusion, opportunity
and equality now see their stable populations 
roiled and challenged for it is as though the 
Earth has shifted on its axis and normalcy has
surrendered to chaos. But of course, it has.

Natural History Lesson

History teaches us much; throughout
the ages those with creative talent
have been dependent on others who
have amassed fortunes to promote their
incomparable genius in music, art and
literature, from the greats like da Vinci 
and Shakespeare, Mozart and Einstein
without whose exquisite extension of
nature's given talents the world would
be bereft of transcendent events and
lofty beauty. But there is an even more
universal patron upon whom all of
humankind depends for generosity in
the bounty of her dominion enabling
her creatures to live and to thrive in
her domain where nature encourages
diversity and resource entitlements to
those whose need is great. To her much
is owed. To her much is attributed and
that includes her own capricious nature
never hesitating to expose vulnerable
creatures to the anomalous destruction
compelled by upheavals until her own
curiosity is satiated as she picks delicately
among the ashes to devise new life forms
among which she does not discriminate
caring equally for bacteria, reptiles,
viruses, aquatic forms and land animals 
such as humans. Perhaps she deplores that
her humans view themselves superior
sending pathogens to plague us as her
own inimitable lesson in humility.

In What Measure

How much do I thee love? Forgive me
for there are no figures, no estimations
no totals to describe this love that buoys
my life for the reasons and the ways are
so numerous they are as seconds beating
throughout the course of a lifetime, there
and uncountable for your very presence
in my life is the oxygen that I breathe
as we open our eyes each morning and
smile, rise and greet the day in perfect
unison, as though we were born with no
other purpose but to twin one another
through a long and loving life together
you and me where there is no experience
worth having if not together from the
merest of pedestrian events to the very
essence of life-altering happenings that
bring joy and happiness to settle over our
contented and love-exultant fulfillment.

So Be It

Not at all! she hisses in response, the
vehemence in her voice as unexpected
as the contortions her face assumes, leaning
in close to my own, magnifying the age
lines that betray much and equally take
me aback identifying a woman whose
patience, sorely tried, has been vindicated
by fortuitous circumstances. It's not merely
the age differential, his chronological
fifteen years preceding hers, nor the years
spent in tandem, all thirty-eight of them.
They speak the same language to be sure
it's simply the interpretive perception that
denied harmony in that household as they
grew old but not ever together. Now, at 74
she has discovered the freedom to be and 
do as she finally wishes and the world has
opened to her just as his has narrowed and
begun to close. She lives happily ever
after in their house, drives their car
moves in a wide circle of other women
seeking adventure and challenge, while
he declares himself happy in his new home
all to himself where any of his dwindling
coterie of friends can visit at certain hours 
in the place called a golden haven for the 
elderly and the health-compromised: a 
euphemistically named 'retirement' home.

Submission

Where logic has it that a religion would
promote peace in teaching its adherents
that universality represents a supreme
power of mystical presence as the creator
of all that lives, all that exists favouring
none over the other, beneficently urging
the faithful to goodness and mercy one
whose desert nomadic heritage of brutality
and suspicion exalting only those claiming
submission to the deity and placing upon
them the passion of evangelism or death
has cast an aura of disunity, threat and fear
upon the wider community even as the
adherents of Islam flee their countries of
birth where Islamist rulers dominate and
persecute their own in the very name of 
the divine. Inspiring in followers the passion
of jihad and terror with the focus on pleasing
their vision of the exalted one slaughtering
sacrificial innocents upon the alter of 
divine fury, transforming lands of peace
into versions of war, bringing Islamic
peace through waging atrocities striking
those resistant to the peaceful overtures of
a religion dedicated to chaos, darkness, death.

Eerily Peculiar

No, that was no dream, not by any
stretch of your night-time imagination
though you can readily recall minute details
and remember the emotions you felt of fear
and denial and hopelessness enough to make
you want to seek out death. Yet this was not
your nightmare, you know. Yours are all
remembered in their own peculiar details
and they tend at this stage in your life to be
of a more assured, placid variety, truly dreams.
Whose dread thoughts then intruded on your
sleep or put another way whose misery did your
subconscious seek to ease and burden you
with the suffering of some unknown soul?
Those details that echoed through your waking
mind as acute as when you felt them in that
desperate nightmare are ample proof that
the grief was purloined, not yours at all
yet even knowing that to be the truth what
you experienced in your state of sleep while
unaware of having unbidden intruded on some
poor soul's has done nothing to placate the
stirring of deep-seated sorrow that coursed
through your veins and stopped your heart.

Wholesomely Yours

What could possibly be more comforting
than to know that no matter how you
disport yourself, irregardless of the 
manner in which you may be regarded by
the rest of the world your family will always
stand by your side. As an ego restorative there
is nothing quite like an abundance of allies
who share a significant quality that you also
are part of and as brothers are foursquare
with you. Sudan's ruler may be regarded as
a mass murderer, but there he is pledging
loyalty to you, Syria's butcher. And though
the Arab League's 22 member-states saw
fit to disown you Bashar al-Assad, blood
will always win out even if sectarian ties
separate you for you are Arab born and as
such belong to this distinguished gallery of
thugs and mass murdering states ruled by
royalty and tyrants and sheiks, military
leaders and backgrounded by the clerics
who never hesitate to issue deadly fatwas
against any who deny the world of Islam's
basic tenet of bringing peace to the world by
embarking on a jihad against the nations of
war deigned such for refusing to submit. You
Assad, will be enjoined to rejoin the Arab
League for their members have missed your
presence and in an act of magnanimity now
pledge to endorse your honoured presence.