He And She

He is a dapper man with a well
groomed aesthetic, appreciating the 
finer things in life, a man of immaculate
tastes who surrounds himself with
branded objects he takes huge pride in
owning. Living alone in an impressive
home, it is as impeccable as its owner.
He is, alas, once again an eligible
bachelor. His former wife now long
married to a man he scorns but who
practices well the guidelines of
conjugal fidelity. A concept he had
no use for, an obvious restraint on his 
own freedom to act as his ego and id
demanded without stint. But to which
his wife took unreasonable umbrage. It
was therefore through his own unbridled
agency to act as he would that he is now
aging and ill though remaining hugely
attractive, sense of humour intact
admitting too late the wasteland he 
made of his life and how urgently he
misses 'his wife', a replacement for
whom he made prodigious efforts to 
find, unsuccessfully. But for a small
possessive cat whose presence requires
him to carefully weigh by the gram the
food she may eat to retain her health.
His own quality of life as a partial
recluse rests in his dedicaton to the
well-being of the little feline who
faithfully follows him everywhere.

Secrets of the Soil

It is the base of all that grows
and prospers feeding the
world with its produce. The
soil is an amalgam of all
that has existed, a rich humus
of dead matter that fungus
and infinitesimally minuscule
creatures masticate and 
decay so that life may
continue. It plays host as a
platform for nature's
botanical specimens that
cleanse the air all breathe
that bear fruit and give
sustenance to all who take
breath. It surprises and 
delights those who take note.
Harbouring both microscopic
life and vast networks of
rooted giants and fungi alike
the soil protects and encourages
all that lives to thrive and
without its vast enterprise
none could survive.


 

 

Night Sky

The dark humour of desolate
black had long since eclipsed the
lingering day. Out of its vast dome
overarching the landscape emerged
furious unseen winds sweeping before
them a dense ceiling of unremitting
force sending lethal daggers of light
to pierce the gloom, shattering the
dark with episodes of brilliant light
frantic with the lingering effect
of a nanosecond. The atmosphere
boomed with repeated bursts of
sound, a light-and-sound display of
nature's awesome authority. The
dark night sky unleashed torrents
of anguished tears from a firmament
rent and pummelled in an ageless
conflict between the pacific and the
aggressive elements that nature
occasionally frees from the shackles
of casual order she imposes upon
them. It is her army marching above
with its ferocious sound and might
a warning that she alone has the
power and the inclination to darken
and threaten all that matters on Earth.

Let There Be Light!

There is passion and an ineffable
ambition in those who skill
themselves to produce the
kind of creative product that
others feel is beyond their
grasp. Yet the impulse to
learn and to create by those
motivated by some inner urge
they cannot themselves decipher
marks the initial hurdle and the
rest simply follows with the
assiduous craftsman prepared
to hone skills arising somewhere
deep within his subconscious.
The muse deep within urges
her novice conscript to creativity
to explore and to be bold and
determined. Look to Nature, she
instructs the apprentice feverish
to become the author of an 
artwork unparalleled in its beauty.
And so, the artist sets out to create
a faithful vision that the muse
extols and in the final analysis
understands the depth of 
indebtedness all art owes to
the origins of creativity in nature.

Sketch

The tall and the short of it is that 
they have together pecked away
at life for a very long time and the
evidence of that is clear to be seen.
If they were birds he would be a stork
and she a wren, an odd couple but
then couples that remain in firm
relation to one another as they have
do tend to be odd. His long, angular
frame stretches twice the height of
hers yet in other ways there is an
unmistakable resemblance as though
two people living so long together
gradually assumed one another's
physical features. Their faces? As
though someone skilled at origami
had carefully folded human flesh
to result in papery-thin skin folded
endlessly on itself, wan and delicate.
Even their voices have become pale
and tremulous. To view them is to be
concerned that too emphatic a whisper
might topple their fragile posture.
But they smile and they proffer the
usual pleasantries before toddling off
and you think to yourself this might
very well be the last time you see them.
They are our neighbours; they could be
yours as well, don't you think so?

Aging Gracefully

When we were just children
a lifetime ago
I was jealous of his attention
wanted it all
all of the time
with no breaks for 
anyone else. When we
were in our adulthood I was
never jealous just self-assured
needing no proof his
attention was focused on me
as mine was on him.
Now, when he sees a young
woman in need of help
he's there, prepared and
willing to offer. His
kindness and empathy
fill me with gratitude.
When I feel too busy
to offer more than a
polite but cursory
greeting to a female
acquaintance he will linger
and he listens, offering
that most precious resource
most people guard with
jealousy; their time.
Few have less time
than we do to spare but
he does that, my husband.

 

Subliminal Delusion

I am Armenian. I was death-marched
raped, strangled, tortured, hanged and
mutilated and crucified. I witnessed mass
slaughter. I watched as my children died
of deliberate violence done them, and of
disease and starvation. But I am of course
delusional since offended Turkey denies
the Ottomans ever harboured malice
toward Armenians, they just died.It was
wartime, after all, the Great War to end
all wars, so dreadful it would never recur.

I am a Jew. I was first subjected to a 
campaign of relentless dehumanization
then herded into closed ghettoes after 
Nazi authorities convinced the world I 
represented a pestilence on Earth. Packed 
into cattle cars I was railed to work camps
concentration camps, death camps where 
medical experiments were performed and 
I was directed to the line where showers 
would wash away the lice I harboured
where I struggled to breathe, clawing 
hopelessly for air. My flesh and my bone
incinerated, fertilized Europe's arable lands.

I am Ukrainian and died of starvation
in a deliberate withholding of food so
inconveniently required elsewhere in the
USSR. I am Cambodian and there was no
hope for me under the Pol Pot tyranny
that took my life. I am Rwandan and my
misfortune was that I was a Tutsi when
my presence infuriated the Hutus in a tribal
competition for power. I am Bangladeshi 
and my yearning for independence
infuriated Pakistan after its nationhood.

I am a Kurd and my geographic heritage
and human rights to self determination
meant nothing to the Baathists in Iraq who
gassed me, destroyed my villages, and my
farmlands and my dignity. I am Yazidi and
my birthright and religion has made me a
target for extermination by death-loving
life-destroying hordes of Islamofascists.

I am a Darfurian, a black Sudanese farmer
eking a living on the land, confronted by
herders whose animals destroyed my crops
and my livelihood and as punishment to me
Janjaweed, mounted Arab Sudanese were
dispatched by my government to rape, displace
and murder me even as gunship helicopters
dropped bombs and shot me as I ran to the forest.

As a Jew I should take comfort that when
the world confronted my skeletal remains it
was horrified and proclaimed that never again
would such an insult to existence be perpetrated
on innocent people. My sacrifice as a human
being would ensure that no others would ever
be threatened and suffer malign deadly assaults
taking the lives of the young and the old, the
malformed and the hale, for being human.

Faculty and Function

My fingers once so nimble
and diligently obedient to executive
order no longer feel the need to
accommodate, they are lazy and
cumbersome, their grace lost
when I failed to be aware they
had impudently decided on a
prolonged rest from a lifetime of
duty. Strength and endurance so
mightily depended upon for an
endless array of tasks remain
intact but not the delicacy of
freedom and the skilled movement
of those long-fled years. It appears
that the corporation for which so
many physical attributes and
senses laboured without complaint
have decided in their wisdom to
form a union of dissent and just
to make it perfectly clear to the
CEO of this conglomerate that
each has their own rights and may
when they wish decline the ordered
imperatives, clarity in once-perfect
vision now shirks its duty along with
its sister-function of deciphering
sound leaving the company in a
bit of a quandary. However, as
long as it is adequately acknowledged
that the head office remains the
ultimate decision maker I shall
stifle these complaints accordingly.

 

Wondering....

I had a dream of evanescent
radiance where I wandered
in my garden suddenly more
expansive than I ever recalled
the dull ragged clouds overhead
and the never-ending cycle of
rain replaced by the brilliance
of a sun freshly released from
its winter trajectory warming
the soil where my summer
treasures are buried to remind
them their long sleep is over.
My garden plants, eager to obey
raised themselves from the soil
warmed by the sun's splash of
light, appearing in a flash of
maturity, appealing to my ready
hand to weed the strange twining
vines choking their freedom and
so I acquiesced and pulled the
vines, taking with them bouquets
of yellow flowers making me so
remorseful that I had destroyed
such lovely living things. So then
was this a dream or was it a
nightmare and what might have
been the message either delivered?

The Power of Words

They can be ephemeral yet priceless
like jewels lifted out of the very air
reflecting light and casting the fire
of their beauty on the beholder valuing
them for the messages they bring
those words that link to reality and
existence, to the exaltation experienced
in lifting themselves from the obscurity
of hidden meaning to reveal the sublime
in a poet's treasury of skills that
transport the ordinary to the sublime.
These are jewels whose performance
is linked with the very issue of life
itself expressing thought and meaning,
illuminating the mind and freeing
the spirit. When not in use these
words are gently held in a treasury
secure from those who would misuse
them, deposited deep in the seat of
my soul where none but myself can
reach them nor manipulate them for
their own ends. There they wait for me
to lift them to their place of glory in a
poem scintillating with raw truth and
humour as befitting their status as
builders of narrative and concern even
as they speak to a perception I own.

 

Nature's Show

When there are no competitors
for the undisputed title of most
powerful force in existence, the 
source in fact of all existence
there is little incentive to vacate
the stage so well monopolized.
Even so, there are occasions when
rehearsals are called for, small-scale
events that to those affected may
appear monumental but in fact 
are nothing in comparison to
what the slightest exertion on the
part of that force can muster. And
nor in fact is there any need to
call in admirers to witness those
rehearsals; they occur and they
have their inevitable impact and
none are any the wiser other than
knowing should they view the
results that reputation has been
well earned. And so, deep in a ravine
within a large urban forest days of
unrelenting rain set the stage for
a hilltop collapse, a huge slump of
earth taking with it venerable trees
whose long life attests to the serenity
the area has long been accustomed to.
The slide of earth, in fact clay and
sand has created an immense chasm
and below a waterway is interrupted
then finds its passage under the trunk
of a tree whose roots no longer fixed
in the soil, drown along with the
myriad others, sacrificed by the
creator of all she surveys and with
aplomb and indifference manipulates.
With a rumble, a roar and a great
moist whoosh of wind chaos is born.

Peek-a-Boo!

Hello there, and who, pray tell, are you?
I do know how sensitive a thing it is
the manner in which you are addressed.
I too take umbrage when receptionists
the tender age of my granddaughter feel
comfortable addressing me unbidden
by my first name. So, my dear what is
it to be? ze, sie, hir, co, ey or whatever?
I can relate; when I was a little girl
I yearned to be a tom-boy -- boy, you see?
True, children came to maturity at an
earlier age away back then. You're in
your mid-twenties, you say? I am myself 
eighty and I must admit I'd never even
known that people could be other than
how they were born, either male or female.
Oh yes, those rare creatures, hermaphrodites.
But you, you tell me are genderfluid and
that's a philosophical mouthful, believe
me. Speaking of philosophy I feel
somewhat obliged to take issue with
your contention that those who refuse
recognition of the existence of those who
are transgendered engage in genocide.
Genocide is something I know a good
deal about you see, for so many of my
people died of it. On the other hand, be
assured I'm perfectly fine if you prefer
short cropped hair and men's clothing.
Why make a fuss over it, after all, it is
your personal business. That's another
thing, it is personal, why make it the
world's business? Be LGBTQ2 as you
wish. Myself, I'm an elderly wife,
mother and grandmother: EWMG, and
you may address me kindly, as Mrs.

 

This, The City

Release, at last, from winter's grip.
There is a shimmer of new growth on
winter-bare trees preparing to leaf out
and green the environment for summer.
Birds swoop through an atmosphere
redolent of spring. As for people they
walk their dogs and ride their bicycles
swooning in the pleasure of a warming
sun, their bodies freed from the burden
of winter clothing lest they perish from
the cold. There, a field stretching toward
the horizon, still swamped from the
melted snowpack but soon to be planted.
And across that field saunters a grey
coyote, unconcerned with the presence
of a nearby highway, reconnoitering
its territory. A few miles on, the horse
paddocks bare of horses but host to a
ground-settled flock of Canada geese
warming themselves in the sun while
searching out the grains easily picked
from the grassy fields' organic manure.
Speaking of birds, and we were, there is
a monarch of the species fanning his
magnificent tail in a grand narcissistic
display to entice a female. The wild
nature of the turkey becalmed by the
serene beauty of the day, displaying
himself for the admiration of incredulous
passers-by in this city of wildlife.

I Was There

Oh yes, of course there is that facet
of the living soul which captures memory 
and there it safely resides deep within,
on occasion to surface and fondly
the mind turns it gently over and
around to recall and to ponder, as
a priceless artifact of life well lived. 
This is how we savour what we have 
experienced, the sweet recall of priceless 
events throughout our days numbered 
in years and as precious as love. As it 
happens, I have also invested in another 
memory bank daily recording impressions, 
thoughts, connections and events, most 
trivial yet some of great personal meaning.
Each is dated to link event with recall
and while the memories resting deep
seated within my brain are chosen for
their significance they resurface
randomly seemingly of their own
volition, a subconscious phenomenon
whereas those written deliberately as
mementos of life experienced are
entirely conscious, lending themselves
to curious scrutiny whenever the mood
takes. My mind, a magnificent creation
of nature's design, packs a voluminous
library of memory within an amazingly
minute space in a brain busy with an
astonishingly wide variety of applications.
Whereas the bound books I have written
within are so numerous a collection over
time they comprise a library of large
dimension of their very own. One a
compendium of emotion, sight, smell and
touch retained impulsively to live as long
as my corporeal being does, the other a
deliberate collection of thought compulsively
saved as an imperishable proof of existence. 

The Prophecy

From the crucible of an ancient
ideology fashioned as a religion
to capture the abiding faith of those
longing for a rationale to existence
came the spark to fire hatred in the
minds and hearts of its followers
exhorted to the divinely inspired
passion to share what they believe
with the world, and those unwilling
to be indoctrinated sufficiently evil
to surrender their right to life and
liberty, for neither life nor liberty
can be assigned to those prepared to
spurn the invitation to enter the land
of peace, preferring to remain within
the land of war, a dystopian reversal
of logic explicable among those for
whom rationality has no place in
faith inspired by the heavens above.
Within the covenant those who are
faithful are inspired to love death, to
themselves seek it so they may enjoy
an after-life of leisure and pleasure
before which they must be worthy 
of its attainment by offering death to
others, both of their kind and from
among those who choose not be as
they are. These words and these very
thoughts result as a parable inspired 
by the intensely thoughtful pen of 
an insightful writer named Orwell.

Cogito Ergo Sum

I am myself. I exist. I think. I am
fully conscious of all that occurs
around me. I communicate and 
I think. I have a brain to facilitate
all of this. I have a body to hold
that brain located in my head
connected to my neck and my
spinal cord that holds my body
erect with a nervous system that
contacts the synapses in my brain
informing my limbs to have 
movement. I have a soul, or do I
merely feel my soul resides within
myself? While I have thoughts I
have no intelligence that informs
me how it can be that I exist and
I think. I just am. Which explains
nothing whatever. This mysterious
existence of myself baffles. How is
it that I can conjure up memories
deeply stored yet accessible though
they reflect the years beyond the
present in reverse. How can it be
that I recall words to poems and
the melody of songs heard so 
long ago? What instructs my brain
to possess these thoughts? How
does my soul know that the body
that holds it belongs to it? The
enlightenment of knowing is
clearly beyond the capacity of
my brain, my thoughts, my soul.
Why is this so that the primeval
elemental source of being shrinks
from the possibility of revelation?
Questions abound, answers elude.

 

Fear of Flying

Get . Over . It. Conquer your fear.
It is ill-advised. Oh yes, there are
risks, but think of the risks alpinists
shake off as inconsequential to the
aspiration of summitting Earth's
highest peaks -- avalanches, hypoxia,
fallllllling from impossible heights
tumbling into giant crevasses from
which there is no escape. Those who
survive write books of their exploits.
So can you. In taking flight you merely
risk the vanishingly limited opportunity
to plunge precipitately into the abyss
of air or ocean; think of the romance 
of it! Oh yes, other risks come to mind;
being forcibly ejected from your
reserved-and-paid-for seat en route
to your desired place of comfort; in
the process sustaining a concussion
loss of teeth, broken nose, with
reconstructive surgery on the horizon.
Yet consider this: you will henceforth
fall into considerable wealth as a
citizen of the most litigious society
in the world, with a wealth of reasons
to sue the notoriously awful airline
that subjected you to harm and 
humiliation for which they will pay
dearly. And you become a celebrity!

Cassini pictured making a fly-by of Enceladus  Credit: Nasa 

NASA Notes

Something's happening here
what it is not exactly clear. Think:
space probes, satellites, radio
telescopes and you're on track.
Then confront strategic avoidance,
disappearing from search radar,
evasive action, antennae tuned...
They've been here. They chose to
arrive discreetly, to see and to
assess but not to linger nor to
conquer. Departing as quietly as
they arrived, no trace of their
presence left behind. Merely a
fear they might be discovered.

 

Dread Rituals

To the one wielding the scissors
the word is being groomed. To
the sibling puppies they are doomed.
There is no escape. How much
patience can be expected from two
restless little dogs, eager to egg one
another on to constant mischief?
Submitting to the ritual of grooming
assaults their sensibilities, an act of
sheer perversity forced upon the
poor foundlings. There is no
reward they can recognize in
being 'presentable' since they feel
perfectly presentable always as
they are, dishevelled and content.
For one there is a reward following
the snipping; the bathing ritual, far
more to his liking, in fact reason
for great excitement and expressions
of joyful expectation. For his sister
another ordeal to be suffered, poor
tyke. Doubly so; hating the immersion
and putting up with her brother's
jealous snipes when her turn arrives.
But there, all done, and don't they
look a treat? Puzzled and chagrined
but tidy, belying their inner demons.

Commentary

In the not-so-distant past
National Geographic indulged
its readers with photographic
evidence that primitive tribal
peoples' fixation on fashion and
beauty was quite unlike our own
where stretching necks and earlobes
wearing metal rings through noses
and tattoos covering every inch
of skin appeared to fascinate
and repel the fastidious among us.
The past has regenerated itself
among our own youth who struggle
to distinguish themselves through
their own inimitable aesthetic
so unlike that of the previous
generations wedded to their
ideas of gentry and elite fashion.
The problem it seemed to the
young was that what they would
make in vogue would migrate
toward the taste of those they
strove so mightily not to emulate
and their culture appropriated by
the despised masses that predated
their own enlightened appearance.
Until the young and the hip adopted
body-covering tattoos, lip-, naval-
and nose-piercings and the older
generation simply sighed and
left them to enjoy the radical
new focus on embroidering the
human form so tantalizingly.

Conundrum

Surely it represents the ultimate
perversity in human nature
that in a world whose choices
are plentiful in their appeal to
fortune's auspices how many
among us make the conscious
decision born of free will to seek 
out the bleaker aspect of fortune's 
will choosing of their own agency 
to drown their souls in a false sense 
of insensate ecstasy; in so doing
despite dire warning of the outcome 
proving Darwin's declaration on 
survival of humanity. That choice 
viewed as superior to the genius 
of imagination and curiosity
leading sound minds to explore
alternate options whose promises
are sound and proven in reality.
In rejecting opportunity and a future
they succumb to the temptation
of a degraded life of misery and
pain whose inclination spirals ever
downward, in the infinite search
of mindless rapture, whose brevity
demands repeats until that time
arrives all too soon when life itself 
craves rescue, choosing to make 
of its presence a short duration.

 

Spring Release

This preserve of nature is where
they feel most alive with curiosity
eager to explore always prepared to
challenge one another with piquant
discoveries in a conceit of ownership
where nature indulges their senses
and appetites for adventure using the
very attributes she has imbued them
with to achieve those goals. This is
a place for all reasons in all seasons
beloved of their kind, a place without
boundaries where they are at liberty
to frolic and gambol, argue and
provoke one another to exploits not
yet undertaken. Of the seasons that
pleasure them, winter with its downy
mattress of white invites them to
avalanche down slopes of ice in
the energy-cooling atmosphere of 
their playground. But it is in spring
that they exploit with passion the
gold rush of their El Dorado when
balmy breezes unleash divine fragrances
driving them irresistibly toward those
hugely appealing nasty nuggets of
winter leavings that spring releases.