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. 

 

 

The Source

 

The source? It could of course be your

subconscious, a more palatable suggestion

readily accepted than that niggling little

recurring thought that whispers now and

again how strange it is... It is you and only

yourself that inhabits your mind needless to

say and who would argue with that simple

fact? You, on occasion. Subtle deviations

from the known into the deep, dark unknown.

For example that poem that flowed so very

effortlessly, surprising and pleasing you no

end. Where did it come from? You sat down

with a defined intent to write what your mind

had been playing with, expanding, refining

and finally prepared to commit completion

you began ... and your fingers flew over the

keyboard in tandem with some urgent voice

deep within -- a tangential direction not  your

own, but there it is, those mysterious words with

no one to claim them but you, their author...?

 

 

Inheritance

 

Verily, it is an odiously ungraceful world

that idolizes a Jewish sage while violating

the humanity of his successors. Ingratitude

of the greatest magnitude unendingly

visited upon a tribe whose numbers are in

constant flux, never permitted to substantial

increase before another deadly assault begins

throughout history from ancient origins to

the present. His name is spoken in hushed

reverence, his people referred to as pestilence

personified not fit to occupy a place in a 

world body never prepared to accept their

presence other than as scheming perpetrators

lusting to gain dominance over all, even

while the veneration of a Jewish scion of

the House of David, inheritor of Abraham's

covenant with God is held to personify all

that is nobly enriching of the human spirit.