Witches' Brew

Surely you noticed? You cannot have
missed it! Why, the march of the Little People
that's what... On they came, dominating the
dark streets, on their courageous mission
to relieve households of treasury on their
hunt for loot. Not looters, not entirely
simply the determination to put those others
the Big People on notice that there are times
when small as they are they must also be
respected for when they pose their question
the alternative to handing out those obligatory
treats is tricks. And who among us really
looks forward to finding home and hearth
raided, gates knocked askew, eggs or
tomatoes more suitable in frypans and
salads dripping down the sides of our
houses. Besides they've gone to so much
trouble on our behalf to scare us out of what
wits we have left after raising them all
with their much-deliberated choices of
costumery so do we really know who those
incognito personages are? Nothing will
serve to deter their purpose to amass the
spoils of this annual war where witches
soar aloft on brooms, black cats astride as
confidantes, not even unseasonal cold and
unending  rain. Just as well the forethought
to arm ourselves with ample giveaways....

Merely Observing

Surely you've noticed a similar
peculiarity to one that I a normally
not-observant individual have
concluded, that dogs and their
people appear to have much in
common. Oh, not merely that they tend 
to appreciate one another and make
good companions each depending
on the other; one for uncritical
company the other for its daily
sustenance, a pact that has served
both the human and the dog very
well over the long history of their
mutual acquaintance. I mean after
all that, all too often a glance at one
points to the obvious resemblance
to the other. Since it is the human that
usually makes the initial choice one
can only conclude that a method of
discriminatory ego guides the decision
to bring home an animal counterpart
of the person. Look at the haircoat
of the dog and the coiffure of the
person; similar texture and colour
purely coincidence? And the body
conformation? Each sleek, alternately
each obese. And manners of course
absence or presence. I have become
skilled at visually clarifying those
similarities and in the process come
away hoping that no discerning eye
concludes that between me and my
puppies nature has declared a truce.

Nature's Formula

Instilled by nature with a sense of
curiosity and awe from birth to death
humankind was given a gift an impetus
to acquire knowledge and to recognize
the divine in nature's presence wherever
one looks. That comfort in nature and
fascination with the never-ending display
of wonders is a gift that sees no end
but it is a gift that is too often misused
misunderstood and ignored. The human
psyche shrinks in dismay and confusion
when the mind fails to recognize the
bond between man and nature, spurning
the latter, depriving the former leaving
an abyss, a desolation of yearning
spurring the search to alter consciousness
and in the process initiating a journey
accelerating the process of meeting that
final conclusion known as death. The
echo voices the thunderous response of
the need to alter the conscious and the
subconscious alike to the possibilities in
life, the journey providing respite from
concerns and pain of being as restraints
dissolve and a kaleidoscopic alter-world
of shapes and colour consume attention
the mind floats in an ecstasy of freedom
that could more naturally complement a
universal mood of social anomie by the
simple expedient of a walk in the woods.

That Jewish Problem

Assuredly any other psycho-social
trait shared so widely by disparate groups
across the globe having little else in common
would of necessity spark a revolution in
re-occurring research in a desperate search
to discover the viral agent that disposes 
so many to single out one identifiable
ethno-social-religious community for 
very special treatment from antiquity to
the present with no signs that this quite
generalized focus to despise and vilify
accuse and threaten those who pose no
danger to others but in their own thirst for
knowledge have gifted the world with the
rewards their inquisitive minds have gained
in diverse fields of humanity's search
for excellence in the arts and sciences.
These are the people however, accused of
isolating themselves from those who have
an oft-stated intention to keep them at bay.
The suffering of the rejected knows no
end for the end designed to exterminate
their bodily presence failed to a degree and
they live on determinedly, and this too is a
fault of theirs. Which of course leads to the
essence of why it is that brilliant minds
eager to research all the vagaries of the
human psyche tend to shrug off studying
the issue of viral anti-Semitism since it is
after all distinctly, solely a Jewish problem.

As The World Spins

When pretty little Alice credulously 
followed that frenetic top-hatted rabbit 
consulting his gold-chained waistcoated 
watch she discovered her psychedelic 
Wonderland complete with growth and 
shrinkage, madcap poetry, lunatic Queens 
babbling Duchesses, clever frogs and
Dodos, in a thoroughly downside-up
world where sensibilities are thwarted
and the unexpected expected, where
a leering grin can separate itself gleefully
from its Cheshire cat host, and tea parties
are not quite what they seem. Her foray
into that dizzy Otherworld was but a 
glimpse backward from ceiling to floor
exit to entrance of the world we inhabit
ourselves, merely magnified in its
exuberant display of life exemplifying
character types we meet ourselves in
our everyday world that we think of
as odd and then pass by secure in the
comfort that between them and ourselves
there is a world of difference, they
inhabiting quaint personal lunacy and 
we assured of cerebral balance in logic.

Nature's Plenipotentiary

She has transformed herself into a black
projectile within the green embrace of
the forest, her lean, lithe body racing
madly along trails, slipping effortlessly
between trees, driving her long legs
wildly along the forest floor in a frenzy
of ebullience at the freedom before her 
to challenge the wind in its sweep through
the woods, her zeal for movement and her
love of life palpable, no longer restrained
for there are no fences, no rooms where
her spirit nudges against confining walls.
Here she is at full liberty to become as one
with her surroundings. As an alpha female
she indulges her fantasies in a complex
dance circling endlessly, looping herself
in a confusion of exquisite choreography
this large dog with her graceful antics
making the forest her very own stage.
This is another persona, not the one that
growls threateningly at smaller dogs so
they cringe and retreat in her presence
satisfying her lust for preeminence in that
dog-greet-dog world where preliminaries
highlight the advantaged by demeanor
and hers is that of the bully, whereas in
the forest interior she becomes the virtuoso
exemplar of canine athletic prowess none
can equal vested in her alpha-female stature.

Perspective 101

A dog is a dog is a dog, to paraphrase
the perspicacious Gertrude Stein. It remains
the instinctual reflex of very small dogs to 
proclaim themselves in control of any situation
failing to notice that they are indeed very 
small and cannot even control circumstances 
leading to their own security as instanced 
when confronted by a large, very large dog 
when the small one curdles in confused
terror, hunching into itself to become not
larger, but smaller, not to be noticed and
thus survive the encounter though there are
no guarantees. This the law of the jungle
as it were, one that prevails in all animal
kingdoms including that animal that prides 
itself on self-elevation to the heights of the 
kingdom's executive level challenged by 
no other. Yet humankind challenges itself 
incessantly, the little man convinced of the
inviolability of his person and his personal 
opinion criticizing those of greater physical 
dimension in the sense of having attained 
the power of political tyranny accustomed 
to dispatching critics to the netherworld. 
Unless one lives within the security of a 
law-and-order community of communities 
when all and sundry may yap to their hearts' 
content, no fear of repercussion armed with
the weapon of the ballot box at his disposal.

Making Headlines

Yes, yes of course we know that conflict
kills, for there have always been wars
and there is no secret that the victims
are invariably innocents, not necessarily
combatants, and certainly one 'side' is
noble, the other the quintessential dark
enemy of humankind for whom the very
essence of human rights is an unknown
and uninteresting concept. The military
machine targets the enemy bombing
known positions with such technical
accuracy that the deed done, it is then
revealed the number of civilians whose
lives were forfeit in the greater interests
of annihilating a threat the enemy poses.
That indeed is war, the collateral damage
that is inevitable, that represents the
damning face of war whose pursuit is
never-ending. Yet that collective shrug
of regret for such untenable losses also
betrays the collective sigh of acceptance
for, as we know, there are some wars
that must be fought in the struggle between
good and evil, and we are intrinsically
good in our determination to outlast evil. 
But oh, the furor, the indignation the moral 
offensiveness of an imperious dictator 
blatantly ordering the assassination of a 
dissenter; quite simply not countenanced
a deed so outrageously atrocious that the
global community of sanctimonious critics
as one declares the hitherto tolerated
source of the crime persona non grata
a punishment never before visited upon
such a powerful, wealthy, influential
source, signifying the outrage of a
public whose disinterest in the plight
of many triggers fury in the death of one.

Seasonal Blueprint

There is a respite in the forest this day
from the incessant winds that have
brought an early winter to the unready
landscape where foliage still cling to
their hospitable perches, now stilled
no longer weaving and waving masts
within the forest canopy a dazzling glory
of brilliant yellows, gold and orange in
a display of nature's artistic talents
despite the absence of probing fingers
of sunlight on an overcast day whose
darkened clouds fail to subdue autumn's 
signature expressed on the forest floor
in a deep abundance of fallen foliage
preparing to put the forest to sleep
during the cold months that deeply
penetrate the soil to depths overlaying
tree roots harbouring the living sap
blanketed with mellow yellows soon
to join the richness of the leaf mass
assembled through countless autumns
well familiar with the onset of winter
for already lazy spirals of snow are
descending in white flurries of frozen
rain exemplifying the resolute season
departures in nature's primal domain.

The Genius of Conquest

There must surely be a certain natural logic
to it all, but it does seem passing strange
that humans, all of whom share the wealth
of emotions that beset us throughout life
find it difficult to recognize that needs
are universal, as fundamental as the very
struggle to maintain life -- a valued albeit 
temporary inheritance each succeeding
generation faces anew in various degrees
of success or failure. Compartmentalizing
the human race into segments identified
by region and all the separations that flow
from location where cultures are born in
support of identifying the endowed group
and spurning the orphaned group into
categories of strangeness and competition
we isolate and we ostracize, threaten and
demonize the other as obstacles to guaranteed
endowment meant solely for the favoured
routinely denied the suspect. The hierarchy
of entitlement versus disinheritance surely
a human construct yet not a phenomenon
lacking guidance from that primeval era
inducting humankind into the social strata
harnessing the unequal powers of blood and
belonging in competition with the meekness
of humility yearning to achieve cohesion on
a different scale, that of empathy and gentle
persuasion through minds elevated in the
spheres of a social contract urging accord
in the process surrendering self agency to
an ideal that tyrants target for destruction.

 

Our Predatory World

Strange, nature's construct of the human
mind and the empathy that is evoked
when confronted with the realization
that the world can be a frightfully nasty
place to inhabit where humankind does
indeed advance its interests yet remains
primordially raw and red with blood in
furthering those interests and woe betide
those who represent the huddled masses
whose only aspiration is to survive for
it is they who are invariably sacrificed
on the alter of achievement that the few
pursue. We shudder with apprehension
and fear lest our personal world become
contaminated with the inborn pathology
of universal psychopathy but it is a trait
imbued by nature's decree that those few
whose success in wresting resources from
the many will prosper and rule and
inevitably oppress, subjugate and deprive
the masses of the means of life though
not the will to live, depriving them with
finality through the medium of conflict.
Yet when such tyrants are the objects of
annihilation themselves the tumult of
wonder, deploring the violence that ended
his rule negate the destruction he wrought.

Garden Dirge

In spring the soil under my hands was
friable and warm from exposure to the
sun and gentle spring rains. The ritual of
soil preparation, the excitement felt with
the first burst of bright green spears
appearing overnight through that soil
and the expectation of more, ever more
revealing their underground presence in
an inexorable thrust as though perennials
were gleefully announcing, 'we're here!
remember us?' as though you could forget.
For weren't you the enabler, planting that
small beginning plant life when the garden
started its long career under your careful
ministration, uncertain at first, gaining
confidence as the garden itself did in its
steady maturation. Ah, spring and the
opportunity to set in motion yet another
summer-full of constant colour, texture
the kind of architecture that a gardener
fully appreciates as a work of art even
if, in the final analysis, it is the natural
order of vegetation to respond to wind,
sun and rain and would do so absent your
guiding hand. But this garden, this one
is your dream aspiring to reality, moving
from night to day in bloom and fragrant
presence. And then comes the time when
your hands are enmeshed in cold, wet
soil on the verge of frost when undertaking
the disassembly of that which nature
wrought with your sensitive aid has
initiated its retreat, and the floral
delights you planted have shrivelled
their lifecycle complete. Your garden toil
then is that of an undertaker sadly but
with resolve removing the dead and the
dying, soothing the soil as late fall
advances into winter and all is lost.

Paean To Progress

There, the deed is done legislatively
and recreational cannabis is now legal
in Canada, joining its sister-legality of
some duration in medical use of the drug.
A drug, yes, a psychotropic drug whose
measure of ruination throughout history
in all societies which it has graced has
been a nightmare of dysfunction and
death. But look at the optics here, the
very signature of the industry where
workers in these 'labs' producing vast
amounts of marijuana wear what else?
why white laboratory coats; see the
resemblance to the medical community
and if we trust hospitals and doctors with
the symbolic health of a nation, why not
perforce others wearing those badges of
trustworthiness, even if the motivation is
building a legitimate new industry whose
profits will be stupendous both for those
growing and purveying the stuff and for
governments permitting its social use
whose revenues will soar into the ether.
As for unintended consequences, well
reality is there are always misfortunes
and no one can be assured safety and
security measures will work in all and
sundry circumstances so youth's promise
can be cerebrally dulled, and infants can
be hospitalized with toxicity and the family
pet can be presented for resuscitation at
the nearby vet's, but a popular and much
vaunted perspective has been validated
freeing up peoples' self-consciousness to
another more relaxed dimension all thanks
to a man whose scruples and function
celebrate diversity and liberalizing progress 
Canada now distinguished, a stoned nation.

Impudent Imposters 

Although as a breed they are her ardent
admirers, gardeners in their absurd conceit
also consider themselves, though they are
mere emulators, nature's rivals. For nature
herself the challenge is non-existent to her
nonchalant expertise in nurturing life on
Earth. For gardeners the science of botany
and the excited pleasure of considering
themselves responsible through their
concentrated labour in coaxing a garden
to bloom leads them to the exhilarating
but innocently absurd conclusion that their
ministrations are wholly to account for the
luxuriant colour, texture, fragrance and
architecture of a garden so slight in its
indifferent scale not to be compared to the
wholesale grandeur of nature's accomplished
creations of geological splendour and
uncountable variety of life-forms some
of them self-contained and self-sustaining.
The micro-Edens so beloved of gardeners 
clinging to the illusion that their knowledge 
and efforts alone coaxed growing things 
to obey and preen their presence for the 
self-genuflecting delusion leading to the 
self-appointed role of garden steward
reflects the hubris of humans, yet another
creation of the great manipulator of matter
she alone designed and brought to existence. 

Prospecting

Uncompromisingly, respect for her must be
the basis for a sound intimate relationship 
she noted as her outstanding requirement for
any relations to succeed and when reminded 
that she often stated she had no respect for
the panoply of men whom she serially shared 
home and hearth with, she frostily asserted 
respect must be earned. Unsurprisingly there
are times when she moans that she desperately
needs to be cherished yet she treats love as a
disposable commodity. Logically it should
be men of high intelligence and good earning
potential she might be attracted to since she
is imbued with both qualities, yet she swiftly
responds to any man expressing desire
requiring no preliminaries nor the time to
evaluate his qualities before proffering her
own temporary commitment. Understandably
ill-suited by temperament to any suggestion
she could be dominated in turn her specialty
is domination resulting in those who acquiesce
ultimately being quickly shed, and those who
resist appealing to her sense of personal
challenge to be overcome; succeed or fail
the end result separation accompanied by
harsh condemnation and accusations of
intolerable abuse as she racks up a growing
inventory of grievances along with bitter
recriminations at the lack of worthy suitors.

Constitutional

The only measure in which they are
opposites is their height, hers fully half
his. Otherwise they are each in their
elder years physical wisps an ambitious
wind might easily carry off into the wild
blue ether. They are so subdued in meek
character floating up there no sound
would be emitted from their protesting
lips, loathe to cause a fuss and draw
attention to their fanciful flight. Of late
the magnet of home tugs him close
while she maintains his abandoned
and familiar neighbourhood schedule
perambulating a circuit of streets her
pale insubstantial presence enormously
enhanced by the wind-and-cold protective
cocoon enveloping her. Her toddling
gait, however betrays the inner presence
of a sensitive soul, the shyest of the shy
whose tentative smile matches the
tenor of her slight quavering voice, one
never quite comfortable with idle
albeit civil chat. Yet she is constrained
to halt her abortive steps to commune
with whoever happens to be there
with halting comments betraying her
insecurity determined to be unflinchingly
polite schooling herself to idle talk
as though to prove herself just like you
and another smile and a nod return
her to that shuffle back to him.


 

This Does Not Compute

It's possible, I imagine, that you're just
an unpleasant person, young man who
runs his bull mastiff and great Dane mix
through this public park deliberately
oblivious to the presence of others who
react in startled little nervous tics when
they're confronted and go into panic mode
when they're walking their own small dogs
on leash. Those large and powerful beasts
are nowhere in your sight-line so you must
imagine, rather than directly witness the
trepidation their presence brings. Perhaps 
you bear some amorphous grudge? Have 
an aversion to the presence of others? 
Enjoy the prospect of your dogs-at-loose 
galloping toward people and their dogs 
forcing them to react to a potential threat? 
The dogs are possibly no threat to anyone
for reality often belies appearances, but
they are persistent and not given to ambling
off elsewhere when their focus is fixed on
a trembling little dog begging its human
to lift it out of harm's way. And when the
dogs jostle one another their muscular
bodies come in too-close contact with
those of people, some elderly, on those
narrow pathways between the urban forest.
Bystanders happening by as others apply
themselves to extrication from the dogs'
presence, tend to take in the situation and
pick up speed as they rush by. And you
do eventually 'catch up' to your dogs'
antics, say nothing, do nothing and your
dogs follow, then once again streak ahead.

Just Deserts

Most of those who have laboured
diligently over the years succeeding in
amassing a personal fortune tend not to
spend lavishly and many among them
feel it becomes them to offer aid to
others in society through philanthropic
generosity hoping to improve society
in some way that appeals to them. By
no means is this a guarantee that those
whose fortune includes material and
liquid assets beyond the dreams of the
hopeful Everyman, but we know of those 
entrepreneurs whose vision has brought
 them unprecedented reward in wealth 
and for whom philanthropy speaks its 
voice of reasonable expectation. Exceptions 
abound in every human endeavour but 
often explanations as well, as when those 
whose penchant leans to embezzlement 
and succeed likewise in amassing fortunes 
appear to have a tendency to rash and 
ostentatious splurging, their greed and 
their criminal minds fixated on availing 
themselves of illicit-funded bank accounts 
enabling them to acquire all the rewards
their imaginations spurred them to crime 
to achieve their end. And the end comes 
swiftly in outraged justice and with
a vengeance when their very visibility
and unaccountability betray their vision.

Choosing Life

At a place of high foot-traffic in a
trendy, upscale area of the city which
beckons to tourists someone has left a
pile of faded clothing forcing people
to skirt the trash as they continue on
their way, chatting or eyes fixed on
smartphones or ears plugged into
music. If it were not for the fact that
a leg and a foot appended to that leg
has been thrust out and away from the
larger bundle pushed against a shop
front it might be reasonable to consider
the heap of discards simply trash some
inconsiderate fool has carelessly left
behind. But the sneaker-clad foot
moves in jerky rhythm so the body
wearing those garments remains
within. No one stops, much less
glances at the heap, studiously
averting eyes, getting on with life.
Clearly the body within the faded
garments no longer wishes to 'get 
on with life' having at some point 
decided it a wasted, worthless effort.
Whether by design or beyond volition
deciding to exist but not to live, the 
slender thread of drink maintaining 
his existence, the pity of strangers
one of whom from among the hordes
passing by halts briefly, stoops
and deposits coins in the begging
cup, himself elderly, choosing life.

Quotidian Civility

To many they may appear as featureless
automatons. Not to me, I know them.
They are now in their grandmotherly
years and they have served me well over
the years. Their faces are well known to
me and so are their personalities. To a
woman, helpful, kind and personable so
I value seeing them each and every week
when I shop for my groceries and they are
there, faithful employees, doing work that
many may regard as unskilled and menial.
This is not how I regard them and for
obvious reasons. They embody traits that
can only elicit respect; their efficiency
and management skills, their helpfulness
and good cheer that much younger cohorts
would do well to emulate. Who wouldn't
prefer the sour, resentful grimace of the
young engaged in a type of employment
the service industry itself holds in little
regard take a lesson from their older
counterparts at the cash register? It is
in recognition of their skills and patience
their genuine smiles and familiarity 
fielding personal questions that I value
them as I hope they do me not as a client
but a fellow human for whom the daily
necessities of courtesy and empathy
represents the bedrock of social contract.

I Regret

It's clear the tiny bundle of energy is
new to life, a puppy whose experience
and exposure to the world has but begun
and its excitement at discovery and
opportunity and exploration while
overwhelming is at the same time beyond
exhilarating, ample motivation for the
little pug to strain at its leash having just
met two  other small dogs whose
presence has animated the puppy with
the goal to to play and be friendly
for in this sharing activity lies the road
to learning, to enjoyment, to pleasure all
of which his instincts guide him to fulfill
on his way to becoming wise in the 
way of dogs comfortable in the presence 
of others, confident that heis one of them
 and pleased that this is what life offers. 
The person accompanying this bud eager
to blossom has fitted him with a cute
outfit against cooler temperatures and
proudly shows off her new acquisition
all the while pulling her unruly charge 
whose leash is attached to its collar.
And I bite my tongue, not to appear rude
by recommending she stop yanking that
collar so roughly of the struggling-to-
play puppy, and acquire a gentle halter to
make her wishes known preferable to
choking the sweet thing, but coward, I
demure, as she pulls, yanks on while
I cringe, shamed to have failed a duty.

The Cult of Martyrdom

Have you heard? There is a community
for whom a shared pathology of hatred
is so intense that to murder is considered
an admirable feat, a joy, a celebration
of communal success. Should more
than one of the hated be killed in methods
diverse and inventive, spontaneous and
planned, assisted or a sole undertaking
all the more reason for ululating pride
in accomplishment. Celebration breaks
out its gifts of gratitude to the murderers
handing out sweets in the very streets
where such gruesome atrocities can also
be visited upon those of the community
who would dare protest that such acts
are inhumane, much less any within who
choose to warn or be complicit with those
targeted for death as the despised usurpers
of land the mass murderers claim as their
own, in a wholesale throwback in time
when territorial imperatives were deadly
emotional, raw existential matters where
tribes wrought slaughter on one another
in an early, evolving world of primitive
malevolence. Political pawns in a cult of
death and martyrdom they elevate mass
murder to a fine art in which they are the 
victims, victorious over oppressors whose
'occupation' they must at all costs 'resist'
in so doing gladly forfeiting their humanity.