Kasbah

 I stand before the painting
An Arabist’s view of the past
A wide sweep of memory fading
Of a time never meant to last.

The burning desert sun flairs
Blasting heat on the scene below
The merchants spreading wares
Of foods and crafts row on row.

People dressed in long white robes
Birds on the wing above
Tidbits cooked on primitive stoves
The ancient bazaar yet aglow.

From the very time of Pharaohs
To the Egypt of this day
Artists have drawn their sorrows
Reflecting time’s inexorably fray.

The timeless crumbling buildings
As beautiful right now
As their builders’ visualizings
A façade of time in tow.

Another Farewell

This is serious business, this
serially judicious round after round
of decisions - what to lop off, cut
back, trim and mourn; the 
frost-blackened, exhausted shrubs,
vines and perennial bloomers that
sealed their pact with nature, to
flaunt their flamboyant green
and colour-raucous glory, striding
into their seasons, then collapse
and perish, function fulfilled, as
the gardener looks on with the
usual dismay, refusing all the
evidence of approaching autumn.

Altered Ego

Are we then our own enemies?
A quite legitimate muse, after all.
Just think how frightening, utterly
demoralizing it would be that
some force intimate to the self,
forever insisting on being there,
beside you, skilled at manipulating
your emotions, thoughts, reactions,
tugged your nerve-taut strings
to reflect his whims and moods
and you helpless to respond other
than as his diabolical mind directs.
What a dreadful scenario.  That
other, capable of eliciting pleasure
and joy, equally skilled with misery
and fear, plays these little mind
games and you are "it".  The victim
of a double agent, unmoved by the
insecurity that settles like a darkly
opaque fog over your viscera,
never knowing which of the
screenings he so arcanely directs
upon your sleeping mind has been
scheduled for airing this time: fond 
 recollections and gentle dreams, 
or threatening nightmares riding
your subconscious dreads; immaterial,
irrelevant to his predetermined
purpose: your nightly haunting.

Cadbury and Schwepps

With faces and bodily conformation
and a truly unintelligent character
that only a mother could love their
bipedal adoptive mother takes her
little quadruple darlings in daily tow
throughout the neighbourhood of
far less refined and bred canines
in her demonstrated adoration and
care while even the hounds and the
cross-breeds look on in dismay
at those sadly crushed muzzles,
beady little eyes, caboose-stuffed
bodies and thinly disguised legs.

Seasonal Affronts

Denial is useless, we have lost
the warmth of the summer sun,
it arches lower in the sky
and shortened daylight hours 
dim our days, frosty nights shrivel
foliage, the garden preparing its
days and months of mourning.

One day the woodland trees
are painted translucent green,
sun winkling through, breezes
twirling leaves, and the following
day the acrid aroma of tannin
sharply reminds us of autumn.

A reminder the landscape reports
with yellow, orange and red
leaves whirling in a cooler wind
that urges songbirds to their
night-time flight, geese assembling
in platoons for southern journey.

Perspectives

Sigh, circumstances have led me to
observe my new personal physician
with a more muted admiration for
her fresh youth and beauty, the so
obvious careful thought in her
wardrobe selection, tastefully
complemented by artisanal jewellery
setting off the splendid presentation,
hair gloss-black, perfectly coiffed,
her ease in complimenting me on my
stylish footwear, the latest achievements
of her lovely, very young children
 - and the crowning achievement:
Look at me I'm a Doctor!

Meticulously absorbed in her profession, 
noting my blood pressure reacting to 
white coat syndrome where that white coat
 no longer exists for as my elderly doctor
 who had served me so well for four decades
as we both aged, finally retired I resolved 
to find one of my own gender, only to 
discover her to be too posh to perform 
any of those routine skills of yore; due
diligence to diagnosis, demurring over that
hands-on tedium, preferring to refer me 
to a handy emergency services clinic.

Stellar Dust

Beyond mere notions of time
there is the ineffable reality of
infinite space, of remote Galaxies
whose infrared light spectrum
instructs the meta-analysis of
cosmologists, those physicists
whose brilliant theories predict
how Nature's designs have been
born of spontaneity in their massive
eruptions, spreading organically
throughout the Universe, that
great, dark vacuum illuminated by
exploded giants and meteors and
comets as planets spiral about
their gaseous, fiery suns, energy
bursting in huge hydrocarbon
cosmic windblasts, organic
molecules clinging to meteorites,
stardust and frozen cosmic moisture
as astronomy makes its timeless
passage differentiating the inert
from emerging biology and the
eventual, primitive elements of
life.  Hello!  Here we are!  We
are still searching; where then 
are all of you,, the balance of
stardust formulated by existence
and the investiture of amino acids?

Jesus Saves

All those timeless platitudes
casual in their insouciant
yet visceral clinging to an
immortal spirit whose legend
(those of little faith disparage)
may slyly, covertly, work their
message into the most banal,
yet infuriatingly irritating of
conventions: electronic life.

Internet service and all those
vital networking sites, above all
email connectivity run the course
of our lives without which one
seems helpless to cope.  Here am
I, haplessly missing that service
whose absence a score of professional
technicians have failed to solve.

From a succession of service
technical supporters named Sam,
Mohammed, Sani Antoni, Elise,
Moise, Dietrich and more; confident
assurances of success - be thou but
patient, dear soul - yet despite time
and effort none succeeded.

Ah, then, in despair, a call from
Heaven brought my saviour, the sole
provider of swift remedy and the
problem solved by an assuring voice
from El Salvador whose technical
sleuthing skills were immediate,
decisive, inspired and successful.

The Messiah:  a humble, most
inordinately pleasant young man
whose duty it is to rescue the uninitiated
from the depths of their ignorance
through his most particular talents:
none other than he named Jesus.

The Garden Game

Complacently self-awarding
we are, contemplating our
gardening achievements,
enriching the soil, planting
to our itchy-fingers' commands,
relishing the rich tapestry of
the garden mature in summer,
its fragrant landscape extolling
our labour, our faultless eye
for aesthetic consanguinity,
the textures we coaxed into flush,
the green architecture and
gorgeous floral displays lush
with nuance and colour, while
Nature suppresses her snorts
of derision, taking pity on our
lack of originality, our pathetic
pride, our insufferable penchant
for insouciant plagiarism.

REM 

(Random Excess Memories)

 A mind feverish in its
recollections, surfacing
mysteriously from long
forgotten depths of memory
so random the wonder is
what stirs them to the surface?
They appear, perplex, then
fade as suddenly, leaving
tender wisps of what might
have been, like dreams that
play out as real life scenarios
more nightmare than dream,
leaving us hanging in a
suspense of longing, dread
and hope, glad that they are
but arcane manifestations
of a mind that does not rest,
the body safely comforted
abed, oblivious, without the
mind prodding viscera, limbs,
to react, defer, succumb.

As Symbols Go

The world as we know it is
fast becoming unrecognizable;
we hardly know where next to look,
in perplexity, vexation and certainly
fear, for what is unfamiliar is also a 
dire threat to rational order and
future expectations.  Never did we
anticipate that distant, exotic tribal
people immersed within a religion
they claim to exhort to peace would
send their standard bearers of
fanatic revolution to herald the
dawn of a new era rife with
suspicion, fear and hate, cradling
close a burning desire to destroy
all vestiges of the old order, to
herald in their old-new covenant of
a prophet raising a crescent moon
banner carried into the carnage
of war to bring defeat to the infidels
and proud honour to the Ummah.

The Secretive Muse

At night, when darkness has
ushered light to day's exit,
those innumerable concerns
and cares set aside and I am 
in bed, my body fast in sleep,
She comes quietly with her 
divine purpose, to commune.

None but I know her, it is
to me only she devotes her
presence, revealing herself
and inspiring sleep to flee
my resting mind from its
quietude in a bondage that
quells its need to wander.

She delicately probes and
stimulates that drowsy state
to half-alert, skilfully offering
phrases, perceptions, aphorisms
acute and pleasing, generously
offering them for my very
ownership and proud claim.

We must, perforce, have signed
a secret compact, so elusive it
hovers beyond my recall, for
while I celebrate in possession
of such wordy gifts, she departs
and when I wake, recall fades.

Splendidly creative she is,
and though having free entry
to my mind, loathe to place
these verse in my care in waking
state, lest I claim her authorship
for my authenticity, the tease.

The Deluge

Little wonder the old man
in the Nursery rhyme
couldn't get up in the
morning; not because
he hit his head, but
deeply ensconced in
drowsy comfort with all
that rain pelting down.

We think of Nature as
sentimental or merely
indifferent to our hopeful
expectations, but there she is,
fondly reminiscing and taking 
to provoking us as in 
Biblical times unleashing 
a flood from above.

Our Reach

Heavens - Outer Space must be,

far beyond the imagination's

capacity to understand, much less

imagine, an infinitely vast place

that simply goes on forever, one

horizon mirrored in an unimaginably

onward revelation after another, at

the macro level, the stars and planets,

the constellations twinkling their

light in its dark vastness, gases swirling,

impulses whirling, the matter and

antimatter, natter of the Universe

unfolding endlessly.  And here we

are, infinitesimally less than

significant, with our human

impudence considering ourselves

somehow exceptional, littering the

atmosphere with our ambitious

mechanical probes, the boundless

ether with our electrical impulses,

our mind-numbingly trivial existence

in the amazingly colossal existence

of everything imaginable and an

unaccountable number of worlds

beyond our intelligence, our reach.

Flight Formation

Sights and sounds of a season,
forest foliage hovering on the crest
of one, bidding its farewell to the other
subtly turning colour, wan green on its
way to brilliant orange initiating the
journey from tree branch to forest
floor, early fall wildflowers nudged
by night frosts, declining the
invitation to shrivel and waste.

Whispers of wings departed, song
birds gone, wild geese beginning
their formation of flight south
calling to laggards below.  The
deafening roar that invades the
cloisters of trees lingering in the cool
denseness of greens reverberating in
the leaf-muffled atmosphere.  Sound

encompasses, its domination set
in the fury of metal and jet engines;
receding, fainter then silence only to
swoop back through the sky in yet
another formation of flight not of
nature's changing seasons, but of
precise military technology.

We see in a brief window of
forest canopy yielding to clear a
brief glory of bright blue sky, not
the 'V' formation of the Canada geese
renewing their flight from winter but
Canadian snowbirds commemorating
Canadian WWII pilots performing
during the wintry Battle of Britain.

Solace:  None

Act in haste, repent at leisure;
an old proverb has visited us
claiming an understated prominence
in our lives, intruding and causing
us to dwell on what we would
far prefer to tamp into the far
recesses of regret and loss.

It is of little solace to fondly
recall her early presence in our
lives, her alert and adventurous
spirit, her sweet companionship.
Then intrudes her elderly frailty,
robust youth and enthusiasm fled
into blindness and memory loss.

Her incidents of hurtful blunders
in blindness, inability to hear
our voices, as familiarity with
her surroundings took on another
dimension, learning anew her
boundaries averting despair and 
loss of her valued independence.

The last insult of life courting death
past her 19th year of life, a near
lethal stroke warning how near was
the Grim Reaper.  The panic, to do
something, anything, to prolong
her time with us resulting in
veterinarian advice to advance the

inevitable for on the cusp of death
nothing could be done to reverse
or avert it.  Now, here we are, bereft,
missing her even as we see her faint
presence everywhere she had been
for she is resolutely still with us, our
companion; here and yet, not there.

Facing Off

Never underestimate the

placatory power of civility

to defuse tense situations

when you have a sound

suspicion that your verbal

adversary is as grounded

in intelligent reason as

you believe yourself to be.

 

Who Goes There?

The world as we know it is
contracting, becoming tighter,
more transparent, our windows
of curiosity and communication
no longer made mysteriously opaque 
by language dissonance and the
distance of geography.  We are now
overlooking fences, peering into
the confines of glass houses of
parliament and worship and
sometimes we approve, sometimes
not, leaving the edge of diplomacy
intact while instilling trust of those
who reflect our values, withhold it
from those opposing.  In these
tighter confines belligerence grows
and the world becomes an uneasy
place for that old adage of
familiarity breeding contempt
is a sideways-glancing
mirror of universal allusions.

Jack, The Tradesman

His peripatetic mind forever in a
maelstrom of possibilities,
feverishly imaging projects, he is
adamantly opposed to cashing out
opportunities to test his capabilities
and no cautionary concerns may
persuade him to stand back, let
those enticing challenges evaporate
in a practical, common-sense
decision to leave it to the experts.
He is living proof that resolve and
determination can solve all
problems.  With his skills acquired
over a lifetime of curiosity as a
self-starter, ahead he charges,
daunted by nothing.  His wife
cringes at each new enterprise
envisioned and initiated, while
yet admiring the finished results
and bemoaning each injury sustained
throughout the creative process.

 Forlorn

I speak to her tentatively,
gently as though she is a
flighty fawn, prepared at
the least trifling perceived
threat to hastily retreat
into the thicket of her
insecurity, never to re-appear.

This reflects neither a
preferred option nor a choice
but the stark need that a
suddenly unexpected alteration
in our long relationship of
intimate emotion-sharing
has bafflingly emerged.

Our mutually treasured
roles have been threatened. The
dynamics of the present quite
obscuring the trust so naturally
and assiduously banked over
the years have placed love in a
most insecure position.

 

Where Are We?

Voyaging that colossal distance
from the solar system that is ours,
itself a mystic's fantasy skirting
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune,
Voyager 1 has informed of volcanoes
and oceans and new moons where
none were suspected.  Cosmic
radiation, trans-portation, solar
winds, a million miles an hour.

Searing solar winds, cosmic rays,
a shifting magnetic field, water-ice
and nitrogen - who wrote this script?
Interstellar messaging set to circle
and tease an alien intelligence - will it
parse, intuit what life as we know it is?
Will it acknowledge emotions, music,
art, beauty and emotion ... love?

Streaking across the Universe
the messengers take heed of fleeting
particles, minute and major, sweeping
through the Milky Way, our galaxy,
but one of countless others within
and beyond space and the coy notion
of time.  And then, the cusp of discovery 
on the vaster distance of interstellar 
space littered with the detritus of 
supernovae exploding into pieces of 
themselves.  Where are we?

User Guide(d)

Gloom and frustration are the
fruits of the unsuspecting, determined
through trial and error - where the
trials are manifold and profoundly
mystifying defying all previous
experience of luck and logic, and
errors there are amazingly aplenty
when applying a witless novice's
logic - to manage, set up and organize
for useful accommodation, a new
computer's software whose sole
purpose seems to the uninitiated
maddeningly insistent on
demonstrating to the stubbornly
determined precisely how inept 
they truly are.  I tried; it conquered.

The Aqua-Garden

Thunder roiled and rumbled
across the sudden aquarium
that has become our world, a
dimly lit, water release of
atmospheric aquatic resonance.
Glittering, sharp spears pierce
the landscape shimmering
hazily through the waterfall-sodden
veil obscuring sharpness of detail
a vast smudge of pastel-bright
colour bruising the view.

Forewarned

Beware, all those

who would venture

there, she has armed

her mind behind a purposeful

shield, her facade a

reasonable facsimile of

unguarded openness

notwithstanding.

And none may

enter.  She has found

friendship and loyalty

critically wanting

an abysmal failure

in human relations.

And now, she

wants ... no

more of it.

The Calendar Summer

The calendar has wound its way

into September, but the atmosphere

has held fast, clinging yet to

summer with wide open sky and

a desert sun with fiercely unyielding

rays baking a day deeply devoted

to lustrous brilliant greens, all

in the forest lavished overnight

with restorative, growth-urging

rainfall.  The last of the woodland

wildflowers percolate on the

landscape, asters in rich pinks

and purples, and goldenrod 

mimicking the golden sun.  A

decided air of seasonal completion

hovers on the humid heat as bees

busy themselves on the offerings.

Lord and Protector

Look!  There ... he cries, pointing

the direction and I see the dark

green of underbrush and waving

wands of bright yellow goldenrod

What now is he attempting in his

delusional need to defy my eyes?

Can't you see it? he asks,

exasperated.  No, I cannot, I 

respond with just the right touch

of tart defiance.  The hare is there,

large enough, tawny-brown, ears

twitching just as Lewis Carroll

might have envisioned.

As we slowly, quietly approach

it stirs itself off the trail,

disappearing into the bracken,

taking its wild essence from our

avid scrutiny and relieving our

bored little dog from its urgent

requirement to protect us.

Forest Storm

In the far-off distance
of the densely dark woods
the dim roar of a passenger jet
rouses the stillness to
alert anticipation then fades
and the forest resumes its
sleep.  Seen through the green
boughs of the forest canopy
the sky is a vast aluminum
sheet, the wind restlessly
tumbling tree tops.  The
slate grey of darker clouds
brings a shudder to the sky
as it stirs into a long
rolling groan.  Soon a deep
basso profundo rumbling
thickens the air at intervals
of steadily mounting intentions
until a bright white knife
rents the clouds and a rich
waterfall of densely globular
rain washes the dark world.

The Nocturnal Garden

Might it be then that the Spirit

of the garden communes with her

cohorts, the Nyads the Nymphs and

Dryads, whose fresh beauty is

reflected in the garden florals dipped

in dew, with their divine textures,

colours, shapes and florid essences?

Hidden by day, the blazing sun a

foe of their tender eyes and

butterfly-wing-light essences,

they shy from contact of daylight

hours to rouse themselves at dusk

and cavort in the shelter of the dark

 garden, their alternate Universe.