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.