Hope

They have suffered  the indignity of
rejection, the disappointment of neglect
the disbelief that they are held less worthy
mere human detritus in the face of a
world where vast multitudes of humanity
live indigent, marginalized lives of want
while desperately attempting to shield
themselves from violence. Perhaps it is
less surprising that they manage somehow
while others around them perish to still
hold fast to a belief in guardian angels
that await the opportunity to come to their
rescue when the time is right. It is that
hope that sustains them, that maintains
their innocence of the reality that perhaps
no one really cares and they will be left
unloved, unthought of, discarded and
bereft of any future. Still they hope and
they believe that someone will care and
their lot will be magically transformed
so those who violate their humanity will
be brought to justice, and they, so long
suffering, persecuted and forgotten will
be redeemed, a new future awaiting them.
It costs nothing, after all, to dream and to
prospect in those dreams, of salvation.

Blue Becomes You

You arrive there because suddenly you are
not yourself. You go there in search of medical
aid, in the hope that whatever has assailed
your abruptly infirm body can be readily
interpreted, some magic potion or rite
known only to medical profession casually
applied and voila! you become yourself again
carefree and capable, all concerns of bodily
failure an issue no longer. You enter the
sacred precincts of a healing centre somewhat
less than the person you normally are, less
secure in yourself, timid and cure-seeking
prepared to lend yourself completely to the
forthcoming diagnosis, agree to the prescription
and emerge, reborn. But ... then ... something
other occurs and you are instructed to undress
remove everything you carefully chose to
wear that very morning and place upon your
self a nondescript blue formless garment
stringed at throat and back revealing far more
of your naked self than you care to and a
remarkable  transformation takes place. Your
individuality disappears, and you become a
patient. Attached to that status identity as a
'brain', 'heart', 'kidney', 'cancer' diagnosis
and you become other than yourself. Perfect
strangers treat you with condescending
kindness. Appended to your wrist an identifying
numeral, not to be confused with a numbered
tattoo you will wear forevermore despite
surface similarities, you assure yourself.

Benightedly Foolish

They are small, black-haired, a virtual binary
power-pair that most observers cannot tell
apart. The power lies in her capacity to play
him like her helpless puppet. Twins in
appearance, singularly opposite in personality
she is deviously impetuous and he, little
follower, is sadly foolish never learning from
countless episodes where she has led him
into potential danger, herself expeditiously
evacuating the area in contention to leave him
fending desperately for himself. Beside
themselves with the joy of freedom off
leash on forest trails  they ecstatically race off
and about, challenging each other to races and
acrobatics then come to sudden stiff alerts
at the oncoming presence of other dogs. It
is she who becomes a raving, barking
proprietor of all they survey and more, and he
who heroically breaks into a headlong dash
echoing her frantic barks, she prodding him
forward until invariably the target intruder
fed up with this upstart impertinence moves
toward them, and she hurriedly departs while
her brother dutifully carries on, yet visibly
shrinking into himself while courageously
facing the larger dog who sniffs disdainfully
and snubs them both while they feebly and
hysterically shriek their disfavour; toy dogs.

Surviving Inhumanity

Strange it is that in the wasteland
of our inner fears buried deep within
our subconscious there lurks a primal
fear of prowling predators focused on
tracking our every move awaiting the
opportunity to pounce, to ravage our
frail human bodies with their sabre
sharp teeth, their ripping claws, to
flail us before our terrified eyes even
then glazing over in death as we become
that carnivore's meal, saved only when
we awake from that nightmare, shocked
and fearful, perspiring with the effort of
escaping. Strange beyond reckoning it
is that the real and absolute threat to our
existence is ourselves, humankind intent
on plundering the very habitat that gives
us succor, the lethal hatreds motivating
others among us whose psychotic
intention is to destroy and to kill in
paroxysms of nature-inspired gifts of
genetic dysfunction in an advanced
world community reflecting the survival
modes of primitive humanity gone amok.

 

Unwilling Martyrs

Language can be a ferocious tool, a
blunt force of sinister intention deployed
with the unerring aim of an expert firing
a deadly weapon in its capacity to warn
that its expression represents merely the
initial attack and more, much more is yet
to evolve with a capacity to extract from
its victim not only the tender sensibility
of offence, but injuries to the flesh joining
the mind in a journey to dark oblivion.
The readily intimidated oblivious to the
warning inherent in being identified in
the discontented camp fail to recognize
themselves in the following descriptive of
terrorist, yet this they mysteriously become
though innocent of thought and intention
and as such the focus of malevolence to
rain upon them whether immobilized by
chemicals or shredded by shrapnel, their
mortal flesh torn beyond repair, minds
floating into the atmosphere never to be
reunited in the miracle of wholeness. Then 
may your soul fly free to take up your
quarrel with god's ineffable language.

Implacable Menace

Savagely discontent in their dedication
to their sole exceptionalism they have
lost themselves in the abyss of hatred
their passion for vengeance spurring
them to sacrifice their young on the
sacred alter of martyrdom teaching the
vulnerable of their duty from cradle to
an early grave that the sacrifice they
accede to so willingly will gain them
entrance to Paradise, that their exploits
in killing will place them on the list
of heroic resisters of an 'occupation'
their leaders have designed in their
endless campaign to restore to themselves
all that they claim has been pillaged
though the heritage is not theirs, for
the antecedents that history recognizes
is that of those whom they strive to
violently depose. Their god in contest
against that of the other, their sacrifice
in resistance to the devotion of their
enemies to a wretched fable of infamous
return to Zion, and they won't have it!

The Days of Our Lives

It is not servitude or a dogged sense of
responsibility but love that motivates my
attendance on you, my dear one. As once we
were ever alert to the needs of our children
now is the time when they are concerned
with children of their own approaching
mature years that our focus has narrowed
to hugs and kisses generously bestowed on
one another, my dear. There is no thought
no whim, no need too slight that can not
be fulfilled with pride and pleasure, my dear.
I hold it in my experienced grasp as a
kitchen chemist to provide you with daily
gustatory pleasure, and you casually fulfill
my need to feel your reassuring arms surround
me not now and again but always and yet
forever, my love. This voyage of ours in
confiding companionship and leisure play
in our dotage fills our days with happiness
shared and needed as a living symbol of
our journey through life in trust and in awe
surmounting all the many trials faced as
one and sharing all the gifts that love has
measured to our great gratitude as fortune
has seen fit to take pleasure in ours.

Carnage Contagion

That indefatigable hunter, the Angel
of Death has a wide circle of admirers
those he can call upon to extend their own
relentless efforts on his behalf. Countless
surrogates from time immemorial that
have excelled in the pursuit of slaughter
in his name as murderous zealots to prove 
their value in personal honour by association. 
Their passionate commitment to genocidal
finality threatens at times of greatest
enthusiasm deep in the bloodbaths of
history to challenge in efficiency Death's 
own capacity to net the lifeless, hauling 
them into oblivion, that place where souls 
wander ceaselessly searching passage to
find their way back to life through those
winding corridors of an elusive maze that 
returns them to the end-point they vacated 
with no hope for recovery. They will remain
there in the forlorn abyss of desolation
forever trapped, purposed to welcome to
this domain of no salvation all those exploiting
life-ending delivery unerringly target as they 
strive to accomplish their allegiance as 
valued aides to the unmerciful fallen angel.

Cri de Coeur

Isolated, spurned, ridiculed, slandered and
threatened, why would any introspectively
sane human being experiencing all those
symptoms of pure, unadulterated hatred
overlook any opportunity, however remotely
effective, to in turn spurn through their personal
initiative, symbols of those who turn their spite
and aggression against your tribe? Vehemently
and with fully-intended malice, advancing
a pernicious campaign to dehumanize me
and mine in a habitual methodology as
decrepit yet successful as faltering history.
The campaign's viral message promulgated
by regimes whose virulently hateful oppression
of their own merits not one iota of notice nor
yet compassion for those sacrificed to greed
and corruption by the world community
whose propensity to embrace with alacrity
any and all charges of violations of humanity
targeting my community, my brethren and
sisters, my children and theirs exemplifies
the eternal puzzle of conspiratorial pathology
embracing tyranny, vilification, genocide.

 

The Landscape

This is a forest steeped deeply in snow
gathered over a season whose months
were rife with atmospheric winter tantrums
varying between plunged temperatures
frantic bursts of wind dispersing heavy
snowfalls alternating with confusion
in the upper atmosphere where Arctic
air collided with bursts gone astray from
warmer climes losing themselves on a
puzzling journey that brought them to a
weather collision resulting in freezing rain
and landscapes buried but not forgotten
glazed with ice pellets and threats to
survival of the unprepared. Nature's
occasional confused state or perhaps her
sense of mischief presents the iconic
display of winter beauty, of forests
whose silent, dark sentinels of the season
rise stark above the buoyant forest floor
yet the air is suffused not with snow this
day but an abundance of unadulterated rain
absorbed by the snowpack awaiting
release from its accumulated fastness.

The Meaning In Life

So why are those questions and the answers
considered to be of such moment and gravity?
We exist, therefore we are, the journey primal
and brief. Define the human race? Simple
enough -- it refers to origins, the past, the
entrance to existence; the present, to the future;
itself the completion of the journey. It is the 
present where life and its meanings can be found
and what could be more personal, open to
interpretation than that ... at a level of some
variance for each one of us. The past is what
created the substance and tenor of our unique
existence. And the future, it ebbs and it flows
and consumes us as the present moves us
ineluctably forward to that final distance when
we are no longer aware, have no idea whatever
what awaits yet anticipate the finality of oblivion.

East and West

Your genial host has spared no effort whatever
to amaze you with a kalaidescopic display
of delightful fireworks. The lovely, light
voices of a girls' choir lifted in the ecstasy
of music performed with precision and grace
could not fail to please, nor the beauty and
infinite loveliness of motion that dancers
engaged with, dazzling the audience with a
vision of perfection. The smiles and applause
swept over the stage like a fountain of sheer
happiness prepared to move from the opening
stages of the Winter Olympics to its global
challenges with the triumphant entries of
worldwide contestants whose enterprise and
qualities of strength, endurance and natural
gifts as athletes engaged, distracted and enthused.
Days of endless suspense and demonstrations
of athletic prowess culminated the years-long
process of exercise and endless practice to
the strains of national anthems and pride.
Your genial hosts have succeeded in their
mandate to provide the world with the spectacle
of excellence, the marvels of the human spirit
the gifts of nature's endowment to the few
that please the many. Your introduction to
this culture hosting these events was singular
was it not? Enjoying the opportunity to praise
and appreciate, did you notice the markets in
passing, where dogs of various breeds are
sold for slaughter? Did you ask in the varied
restaurants proud to serve you in this place
of exuberant future memories what constituted
the ingredients of the soups and stews served?
Are you eager now to return home to embrace
your loved ones and reunite with your well
loved and anxious companion dog you know
agonized over your mysterious absence?

You Too

Be assured, said the wise old woman
hoping to instill a note of hope within the
battered minds of despairing men, women do
love men, and cannot live without them not
merely for reproduction purposes but to share
the joys of carnal exchange and the comforts
of a tender touch, alongside the opportunity
to build a life on mutual interests. Needless
to say, with the exception of those among
both sexes who are vicious monsters and
sometimes those who are just plain stupid
morose and lacking humour. Women adore
the masculinity of men, the nature-enhanced
challenges of adjusting to binary purposed
perceptions from an angle not their own
discovering in the process the angle not so
at variance with their own. As defiantly wild
creatures women crave the physical as well as
the cerebral but never at the expense of being
owned or exploited and reasonably return 
the compliment. What appears confusing to 
men uncertain how to meet a woman's mind
is simply a manifestation of off-putting moments
when unreasonable/reasonable resentments set
in but seldom for the duration. So have due
patience, wait it out if you feel conscionably
that the end has value and the pain a purpose.

 

Revelation

You have been forewarned; this is no light 
message that invokes the illustrious name of the 
Heavenly Father and the Messiah so take heed 
for the sake of your trembling soul, my friend.
Those with the good fortune to have the ear 
of God have been tasked by him to disseminate
what the omniscient, omnipotent creator warns
of; ignore at your peril. Consider the exhortations
your invitation to become as one with his faithful.
The signs of impending doom are written upon
the heavens in scripture both sacred and profane.
Devastation awaits through destruction of all
that is comforting and familiar. For that horned
beast that frightfully confronts the unwary, with
his dreaded emissary, Death, skulks preparing to
strike. Prepare for a celestial invasion, yet not
of aliens, but the spawn of the devil. It is set
forth in the sacred scriptures of antiquity the
prophets of yore relied upon. It is the prophets
of today that bring this horrific message to us
now. The Sabbath of finality is soon to arrive
writ large upon the calendar of creation. You 
will be claimed by calamitous events as the
aliens arrive and reveal the architecture of their
great plan bringing sorrow and pain inconceivable
in its impact on mere mortals. Yet there will be
no escape for death will elude and those stricken
will live forevermore in anguished delusion and
pain. Prophets proclaim the world's last chance
to reclaim their humanity through dedication to
God. Repent ye sinners lest the aliens strike. It
says so right there, on that full-page advert in 
your local paper, so shudder and get on with it!

All Is Forgiven

The tidy and reliable social contract has
turned itself inside-out, the civilizing effects 
of enlightenment and compassion now rejects 
the dictatorship of the majority those who fit
themselves comfortably into the expectations 
of a society that had no time nor patience for 
the social outcasts who deigned not to join 
their ranks by choice or by the indelible stain 
of birth identifying them as different and suspect
of inferior status, of deviant values with clear 
indications they were not entitled to share any
of the bounty of aspirational future success.
In the 'progressive' new social order prevailing
now, all those who can proudly lay claim to
victimhood monopolize tender sensibilities
as politicians genuflect in the aura of social
justice and news media fall into line to so
lugubriously detail the sins of the past that 
kept them contemptuously on the margins of 
existence in the back streets and alleyways not to
be noticed but now are proud possessors of that 
invaluable 'get out of jail' card that forgives
them their incapacity to obey laws, overlooks
their over-representation in drug dealing
their gang alliances, killing sprees and theft
for they have suffered mightily to come to
such a pass and the majority is therefore
obligated to give them time and again that
veritable free pass for they can do no wrong.

There We Are

Though it would have been unlikely for
me to visualize in the boy I knew into the 
far distant future to conjure the image of a 
man to whom I have been married for over 
sixty years, I have no problem seeing deep 
within those eyes, in his warm smile and 
tender hands the boy the girl I was became 
companion to. Beside me all the years of our 
lives there is sweet comfort in his body next 
to mine as we sleep through the quiet night 
and wake together each morning. We still
entertain one another in the surprises each is 
capable of proffering proving most adequately 
that despite a lifetime of intimate familiarity
we each are more than capable of fresh
introductions to our thoughts where our
minds remain independent of synchronicity.
There is so much to share in perceptions
newly-acquired knowledge and realizations.
Our shared love of literature, music and
nature enriches our every day as we embark
on quotidian adventures searching out our
pleasures in leisure hours together. There
you are, the boy I knew deeply engrained
in my being, and here I am, older but still
me as we comfort and cherish one another.



 

 

The Haunting

Its soft stealthy footpads are silent but I
know the creature is there, stalking me as
I sleep, the hissing heat of its breath
moist and foetid like that of a carnivore
spreading its toxic miasma into the bedroom
enveloping my bed, suffocating me, now
and then rousing my restless slumber
and I tense to its ghostly, ghastly presence
a shadow large and menacing, there one
moment, gone the next. Its sleek striped
skin ripples sinuously as it prowls
restlessly, relentlessly, refusing to leave
my consciousness, and once again I
wonder at its hostile hunger never yet
fulfilled and why it returns ceaselessly
as though it is my mind that controls its
presence and has forgotten the key to its
absence. The slavering beast governed
by the legislature of nature's survivalist
instincts waits for me, but I am not yet
ready, I have no wish to join with it, as
human sacrifice to its animal need to
consume to live, like death ever lurking.

Revisiting History

Smothered by alienating humiliation
the nation whose defences fell as the army
of conquest marched forward to take
possession of its soul and its soil turned
inward, snarling with wretched misery
searching out the presence within its bosom
of a cringing minority accustomed to the
viral outbreaks of violent hatred whose
passions over a thousand years of custom
ebbed and flowed and once and again
retreated, dissipated temporarily in the
wreckage and looting of homes, the wan
bloodied faces of survivors wailing and
burying their dead. This time mere pogroms
would be magnified to an extent no malice
might have imagined possible, organized
and institutionalized, formalized and
normalized to an enduring pitch of a
final solution previous atrocities merely
hinted at. Enabling the resentful occupied
to turn their rage fully realized on those
cowering victims, escorting them with
little ceremony to mass annihilation. And
when  the world peered within, then
recoiled in horror at living skeletons
released from the fate that had taken so
many millions, the perpetrators
fashioned a mewling narrative of duty
later to evolve into the myth of having
themselves suffered far more enormously
than those they escorted to mass death.

The River's Mood 

Steeped in the mythic heritage of the
country whose solitudes it bisects
the river is broad and deep stretching
into the heartland of the nation. Its
surface is glazed still with surface ice
under the steely gaze of an aluminum
tinged sky echoing the white landscape
below shimmering through the all
encompassing ice fog that obscures
details. Beyond the river on either side
lie two versions of history, two cultures
two languages and two adversarial
opinions. Like the river's ice-bound
surface all is serene on the exterior yet
the facade, like areas of the ice, has its
cracks. Moods run dark like the icy
river areas evading freeze-up rippling
dark and sinuous up and around the
rapids unsettling the quiet exterior like
superficial peace that exists between
those disquieting cultures at constant
discreet opposition in a land of plenty
to be shared, its strength and beauty
displayed in prairies and forests, lakes
and mountains beyond peer from shores
stretching from east to west, north and
beyond, ocean to ocean to ocean.

Served Cold

This is the end of times. The times when
men and women shared awkward moments
now viewed as transgressions. Times when
juvenile distractions and unwarranted
entitlements were ascribed to the gender
with the momentum of 'the way it's always been'
and their opposites irrespective of discomfiting
unease practised that metaphorical shrug of
demeaned status. The pendulum has swung
and continues to swagger with the voice of
women declaring the empowerment of
revelations whose airing has the strength
of a court of public law. Those on the
receiving end of accusations of sexual
misconduct, manipulation, humiliation now
fully understand how the humble may one
day rise in numbers to overturn the status quo.
Living to rue their thoughtlessness, linked now
with the dread excesses of assault, reputations
flounder and positions of authority melt away
under public scorn. The guilty pay the freight
of authority misused in a game where the
accused bids farewell a lifetime of achievement
reduced to a shadow of shame. Those guilty
of mere stupidity are thrown into the hopper
their hopes for their future shredded beyond
repair. And the innocent, those maliciously
accused of having committed fallacious
indiscretions? They too become criminals
of the prevailing social order sweeping all in
the path of righteous revelatory revenge. 

 

Snow Smothered

Somehow you managed to take the
road less travelled and what you see
is extraordinary for your impulse
has introduced you to a gossamer
world where white filaments
suspended from a silver sky spiral
lazily over the atmosphere and
there you are suddenly immersed in
a white fog and everywhere you look
are tall shapes and small shapes
swelling the landscape with white
fluff that a swirling wind whips
from the purchase gained by the
overwhelming drifts of pure, white snow.
In the pale gloom of the forest there is
no sound, the silence emphasizing
a world beyond the familiar. Dimly
recalling dreams of  your childhood
the landscape is magical, soothing
to your senses, bewitching in its
crystalline brilliance and quite
possibly a figment of imagination.

Creatrix

The vast mysteries of the natural world
tease our minds with the never-ending 
spectacles of her elements dabbling in arcane
transformations of the familiar transporting
us with awe and admiration alternating with
trepidation and fear, while those among us
possessed of the genius of deciphering her
secret codes illuminate the science she brings
to her vast and wonderful realm from the
far reaches of the Galaxy and beyond to her
dominion of our humble planet, insignificant
in the greater order of the universe she so
magnificently manages. Our imaginations
allow us to visualize the cold, dark space
beyond, but our senses bring us unerringly
to all we can see and hear and smell and
touch, for us the true reality of existence.
The infinite existence of an empire so vast it
escapes our capacity to absorb, we are left
with what is intimately verifiable as our
reality. That will suffice, for even our own
comparative finite landscape appears so
utterly complex it challenges our capacity to
comprehend, leaving us the option of mere
acceptance in the enormity of her grace.

Life's Hurdles

Even in his seventies he still cuts
a dashing figure, a man careful of his
sartorial appearance, immaculate in his
toilette, beard trimmed to perfection
the very picture of aristocratic elegance.
Still, life has a stealthy way of teaching
us experiences we might vastly prefer
not to be presented with, and he has had
his share. His penchant as a bon vivant
and roue, impressed his wife to such a
degree she chose to leave him. His
punctilious attention to details has left
him with an opulent abode with no one
to share its pristine perfection. He is an
affable man, a kind man and an avid
adventurer for whom no number of trips
abroad into the world at large is too many.
That ambition has him on his second round
of visiting all the countries of the world
which ambition has latterly been put on hold. 
Sequestered briefly in a change-room
while fitting himself into new trousers he
suddenly turned from upright to sprawl
and it was agony awaiting the ambulance.
He has since then suffered the quality of
mercy afforded those who survive the sad
happenstance of a broken hip. Hobbling
piteously, grateful that his ex-wife briefly
returned to give him aid, he has graduated
finally from walker to cane, already in
the throes of planning his next global trip.

Her Dilemma

One is most surely entitled to wonder
whether Nature overplayed her blueprint
realizing she had lost count in all the
pleasure she derived while creating those
innumerable species she fondly called
her creatures while failing to provide
adequate territory and sustenance so
that all might survive in harmony with
one another. Compensating tardily by
imbuing them with territorial ambition
and the will to survive leading to the
inevitable partitioning of habitat and
strife. Or did she feel her creatures might
perish from sheer boredom without that
hostile tension? Primitive creatures driven 
by need and scarcity morphed into tribes
each inimical to the presence of the other.
As evolution proceeded with environmental
manipulation seizing the promises of
nature to their own ends, humanity endured
and so did the ferocity of their hatred to
one another. Fences, it was found, made
for good neighbours, and when those failed
to suffice, then great separating walls were
constructed. Finally and perhaps decisively
the challenge of existence faces off
against advanced technology from
smart rockets to biological weapons
and the champion device that nature
attempted to sequester and failed as she
sourly contemplates the end of her
miserably failed experiment of creation.