If You Go Out On The Streets Tonight

A ghost-ridden, sinister-spooky night devised 

for children's entertainment is it? October 31 

chosen to expose the childlike and the naive to 

good clean fun and delectable treats in the interests

 of emphasizing how productive mock-sly threats can 

be in prodding home owners to play the game 

or face the shame of denying children their just

awards in preparation to face the world of maturity.

Truth is those pre-teens indulge their parents and 

society's subterfuge in the pretense the game is on 

as they prowl from house to house through unfamiliar 

streets on cold, windy, wet nights with no intention 

of spoiling the spectral sight of ghouls and goblins 

hanging, dangling skeletons enlivened by ghastly

sounds of moans and groans enhanced with orange 

spotlights gleaming on lawn-entrenched graves

shuddering at the absurdity of it all yet reluctant 

to disappoint adult expectations much less waste 

the offerings humbly accepted from simperingly 

delighted strangers on this costume-haunted day of

mawkish memory in adult-inspired entertainment.

Iran Once Was Persia

There is little comfort to solace the 

stricken misery of the people whose

fabled heritage has been dismantled

their natural tendency of grace and

humility transformed by the vagaries

of fortune and time ebbing and seeping

through the skeins of history of a nation

exalted by its guardianship of the

treasures of human aspiration. Who

might have envisioned that country

brought low, its people suffering at

the hands of a theocratic reign uttering

threats against its neighbours, diligently

persecuting its own, pursuing the

ultimate expression of malice through

development of lethal weapons. All in

devoted service to a peaceful Deity...

The Walking Dead

 

A full lifetime of cordiality as a

thoroughly social human being

patterns a rote response and a

flashy smile but this is not the same

man we've casually encountered

for years. The rough outlines of

familiarity remain but the face

is lined and sunken, his gait now

unsteady, his body a mere whisper

of the hale and hearty person we

knew. In an expansive and very

private despair his wife described

him as changed beyond recognition

but we recognized him behind the

studied facade the hurried nod as he

carried on, his two dogs scampering

before him. With their storied senses

do they know, can they detect the

wholesale change, are they concerned?

Clinical depression said  his wife. A

total lack of interest in anything. He

cannot rest easy, has no appetite either

for food or for life, mumbling incoherently. 

Medication was useless and psychiatrists 

little more. Can a fulfilling life so suddenly 

descend into an abyss of the walking dead?

Metaphores

 

The day is cold, the wind brisk and the 

sun wan on this late October day. 

On a park bench sits a young mother

her child upright in a baby carriage

snug in a snowsuit, a blanket bundled

about him. Alert to my presence he

watches intently as I speak with his

mother. I was once that mother, happy

to take my children out to natural

surroundings and the elements, a vital

component of valued exposure to the

things that matter in life. Later I watch

as a young man and woman walk in slow

measured pace behind a little boy his

legs pumping a tiny bicycle and I recall

my father teaching me on a tricycle to 

venture forth, undaunted. Later still people 

walk by on the street barely glancing at 

an old woman planting flower bulbs in 

her garden, busily discounting winter and 

anticipating spring. That old woman who 

negates the inevitability of winter is me.

Name the Nation

Predictably formulaic it never seems to fail

countries accustomed to authoritarian rule

making their initial tentative steps toward

the exoticism of democracy anticipate

it will be inevitable that fortunes will rise 

and wealth will accrue to the elite and the 

commoners but the magic formulation fails 

democracy is discredited once and for all

the experiment with elected offcialdom a 

disaster that must be erased and who better

to effect that return to tradition than the

military never completely enthused over their

changed role in maintaining peace and order

when disorderly conflict held the promise of

territorial expansion and social corruption had

its value in rewarding those faithful to the

fists that struck down any who dissented.

The Culture of Tribal Conflict

Culture is a fine expression of humanity's

love affair with language and literature

our fascination with the science of nature

our longing for music to soften our days

and painting and sculpture to reflect the

natural and the human, the soaring ambition

of architecture complementing our urge to

manipulate the world to our advantage. It  is

the ultimate expression of civilization as

sophisticated populations exalt existence in

and of itself a fine enterprise from birth to

oblivion. And then it behooves us to muse

why it is that cultivation of these symbols of

a higher order of existence differs so widely

from here to there. There is where an enduring

tribalism triumphs the finer instincts jostling

for supremacy, tribe and clan taking precedence

stalling human progress in the primitively

ascendant conflicts that topple order and security

where ancient rites of conflict and preoccupation

with conquest metes out death even as death 

stalks victor and vanquished, in famine and

pestilence, reaping what they ceaselessly sow.

Innocent of Humanity

 

The moral degeneracy of those

without conscience or compassion

strains the capacity of decency to

grasp the enormity of lengths to which

people lacking a compass of humane

direction will strain the bounds of

savagery. Those who aid and abet 

terrorists knowing their despicable acts

are no less guilty of butchery than those

who wield the blade separating head

from body. Adherents of nihilism 

cloaked as duty of service to a deity

unpitying and dire, themselves emulate

enslavement, rape, bondage and murder

yet turn with innocent eyes once justice

prevails to plead ignorance of their heroes'

malicious sadism citing their role as

follower, not criminally guilty even as

they gloried in bloodlust and carnage.