Waking Up

 

Remember those nightmares that

tormented you as a child so that you

were torn between sleep and waking

convinced you might be caught by a

night-time stalker and never have the 

chance to grow up, taken by deathly

child molesters who tortured and killed

their prey. Remember how your mother

soothed and hugged you, promised that

would never happen, your over-active

imagination on overtime and all would be

well. 'Sleep, my child', she said with love.

You did, and the nightmares dwindled and

you grew into life's adventures. Now you think

did your subconscious prepare you for the

future where not only you but the entire

world is stalked by a devastating predator

out to torture and kill while the world cowers

and shuts down hoping it will recede and fade

and life could go on toward normalcy. Is this

a living nightmare or is it reality? That old 

adage that time will tell? Time's mum.

Trees as Survivors

 

Rebellion is not necessarily the sole 

prerogative of humanity though the search 

for an ideal well may be. All things being equal 

in nature each species is conspicuous by its

form and features typifying its kind and 

recognized as such. Yet there exists among each 

of its kind variations with some so askew to 

the original blueprint their presence taken for

an instance of a living thing choosing through

personal agency a form unrecognizable in its 

lack of symmetry. Giants of the forest are in 

this category; a misshapen form rejected for 

utilitarian use where straight and tall is the ideal

bypassing the anarchic symbolism of rebellion 

to form, ultimately resulting in a perfectly venerable 

specimen of breath-taking girth and height its guise

of majesty and longevity a triumph of nature.

Eye To Eye

 

There, now, is a union conjured in hell

yet it will certainly serve its principals

well for neither brags of principles that will

fail in their communion of conquest and

subjugation. Comrades now, though one

celebrates the peacefulness of harmony in a

restive population requiring frequent reminders

that conspiring against their government comes

with the promise of life imprisonment and the

other dispenses with such niceties through

outright mass slaughter of those resistant to

their rule.  The mutual proviso both have

settled on is non-interference in each others'

management of their respective populations

each free to punish as they see fit through

diametrically opposed ideologies. Tyranny 

makes its home in many persuasions.

 

 

Dread Disablement

 Nature neither negotiates nor compromises.

When her blueprint was complete in the

certainty that every minute detail was

attended to she flicked the spark of creation 

unfolding the universe in the vast timelessness 

of a vacuum she made space for then watched 

as her creatures animate and inanimate emerged 

in the fullness of the new element she called time.

Of her creatures large and small she endowed

the means to survive to know themselves

and to evolve crediting the explosive genius

of their maker. Of those who failed to use

her gifts she devised the exquisite agony of

reclamation of consciousness rendering the

failures inoperative and dispensable as every

internal organ critical to life along with memory

and thought fled the spirit due to expire. The

demon she appointed to oversee the inexorable

process took to its assignment with a vengeance.

Friends, Not Confidantes

If it's a shock

keep it to yourself.

You haven't seen her in awhile

and now she appears like

a deathly apparition. Yes

she's smiling, she always does.

And it's genuine because she

genuinely is a lovely person.

All the more shocking

to see her visage with its deep

perpendicular runnels etched

distressingly in her still-young face. 

Standing casually her husband

beside her they are as always

the well-adjusted couple yet

she has become vanishingly

less than she once was. It is

you know well vanity that dresses

her in tights and brief tops

and you wonder why a woman

of her age and stature is mired

in such insecurity and whether

before it's too late you might express

your concern or simply say the usual

that she looks like the cat's miaou. 

 

 

Force Majeure

Hers is a mighty power from the 

minutiae sketched within her 

creative disposition of the universe's

gases and minerals before time

and the vacuum consuming endless

space she is attentive and deliberate

overseeing all that exists while

tasking her elements as aides in the

drama of upheaval and renewal. 

From the spinning of nebulae and

evolving of constellations and their

stars overseeing all that evolves and

revolves in the heavens of the stellar

night she turns brief scrutiny on her 

lesser landscapes to artistically create 

an impulsively fey spectacle of 

shimmering incandescence as rays of

the morning sun burn through the 

canopy of a forest drenched through

a night of ferocious thunderstorms

wind still whipping the steeples of tall

old giants paying obeisance to nature.

The Monsters Among Us

There are those who ply their horror in dark city

passageways awaiting vulnerable passersby

young girls on their familiar morning treks

to school never again seen alive, their frantic

parents calling police who discover a horribly

bludgeoned body as the coroner identifies death

by asphyxiation, with insufficient evidence to

lead to the perpetrator who goes on to commit

other atrocities. And there are those who find

purpose in numbers to assault entire tribes

vulnerable and peaceful leading to bloody

slaughter of the men and children, abduction

of the girls and women used until they perish.

These are men born of women whose ghoulishly

twisted minds and absent souls stalk the unwary

with bloodlust reflected in their entitlements

to terrorize and shred the dignity and security

of the helpless hapless whose anguished cries

for mercy feed the fires that burn the furnace

of hatred, passions venomously steeped within as

they menace and strike and rape and slaughter

while the world looking on, shrugs indifference.  

It's The Jews!

Shout it into the dark abyss of the universe

of a cursed humanity within which there is

a single enduring pathology, the searing

cyst of hatred seeping from the pores of

a myriad of fanaticals whose tenacious belief

in ridding the world of one tiny fraction of an

ancient people would be of benefit to the

balance for in their absence the weight of 

world society's inequities would stop the wobble

in Earth's axis and all would settle into a fairy

tale of peace and goodwill. The attempt was

made with some success before it fell in upon

itself with the realization that the satisfying

fuel upon which anti-Semitism feeds the

stupefying ire of bigots would be forever lost

leaving Jew-haters to look in vain for victims.

Parsing the Malediction

Of course no one ever claimed that living in 

interesting times would be pleasant. That after all 

is the entire point of the clever curse a threat 

wrapped neatly in a polite form of speech.

Politeness and malice make interesting bedfellows

and there are entire cultures built around the

concept of smiling as you thrust a verbal dagger

deep. Although not exactly viewed as a gift

disguised as a malady the world is now steeped

deep in an unleashed pathogen that happened to

emerge from disputed sources within the culture

that birthed the diplomacy of fluff-coated threats.

Entirely of course coincidental. Yet if doubts have

surfaced and a grieving global community expresses

its desire to delve deep into the hooded details of

emergence and worldwide infection we are doomed

to continue living in interesting times since the

venerable source has no intention whatever of casting

illuminating light and reason for scientific display

as a humbly reassuring gesture of mea culpa.

 

 

Under Siege

Hell's gatekeeper, it seems, has become lax

no longer guarding the sacred precincts of the

damned oblivious to the fugitive hosts of hellfire 

abandoning their posts despite that so many have 

descended whose souls require constant flagellation 

in recognition of their sins of commission against 

fellow humans. Aides de feu now roam upper Earth's 

forests bringing with them fire and brimstone and 

inhumane heat the devil himself would happily lave 

within. Rumour has it that an ungodly pact was reached 

between heaven and hell not to interfere with one another's 

gifts to humanity. Indubitable gifts they are; sun and rain  

from above, fire from below, essential to existence

the excess of which equates to nature's dysfunctional

uneven distribution over her creation; abnormal heat

domes of punishing depths sparking drought and

wildfires of perishing dimensions while elsewhere

hurricanes usher copious rains flushing mountain

sides into valleys below while rivers and lakes swell

overrun their floodplains drowning humanity's efforts

at taming nature's geological boundaries into disaster.

 

 

Forest Drama

 

Mere moments earlier the afternoon sun

had beamed its light shafts through the

forest canopy and blue appeared between

the windswept cathedral of forest giants

when suddenly unsuspected forces altered

the stage as the heavens innocent of clouds

became hostage to an oncoming black swelling

presence presaging a series of violent thunder

storms bellowing in the distance and swiftly

closing the gap. Soon curtains of rain began to

swell the forest stream and in its meadow 

wildflowers so recently preening in the grace 

of the sun were battered by the force of the

unsympathetic rain in an atmosphere suddenly

dark with the drama of thunder and lightning.

The Dark of Night

 

Rain has finally ended. The rolling booms

of thunder no longer reverberating through the

forest. The canopy drips incessantly relieving itself

of the burden of rainwater. On the hillsides the

excess runs off into the forest creek below

swelling the passage of water meandering

through the ravine finding its way eventually

to the great river far beyond the reaches of the

forest. Wind gusts that accompanied the storm

blasting through tree masts clacking their tops

in a fiercely disturbed dance of courtly sentinels

raked through dead limbs of old pines and maples

cracking and sending them to the forest floor.

The atmosphere is dense, dark and silent. No

birds sing, no animals venture from their dens.

No bees, no butterflies or damselflies could

survive nature's assault and remain securely

hidden in tiny nooks and crannies of tree bark. 

The dim light of late afternoon falters and fades

welcoming early dusk and soon the dark of night.

There Be Dragons

Ancient mariners knew their navigating craft well

avoiding sailing their ships too close to the edge 

of the world for of a certainty there where the ocean 

spilled into the great forbidding abyss beyond and 

below so too would they and perish. They have their 

modern counterparts who unlike the mariners have 

ample access to proven history but yet deny that 

Jews ever inhabited a swath of the Middle East 

in antiquity amply documented as Judea. These

present-day fantacists state with the conviction of 

the addle-pated mired in hostility to reality that Jews 

have no rights in the Middle East for they have 

no history there and nor was there ever a Temple 

built by Solomon sacred to Judaism, for Solomon

like Moses and Jesus was in fact a Palestinian Arab. 

Jews, ipso facto have no right to pray at the Temple 

Mount where sits a recent Muslim gathering place built 

atop the Biblical era Beit Hamikdash in memory of a 

fabulous winged horse who flew up to heaven, a 

most blessed event, Prophet Mohammad astride. 

 

 

Premiering Near You

Call it a dress rehearsal. It was all of that

in living colour when West and Coastal

North America dissolved into an oven of

overheated atmospheric misery ratcheting up

air conditioning while gas extraction came to

a halt because of the heat of a steroidal summer

that led to crackling wildfires, mass evacuations

and towns scorched into ashes. Think that's all?

The extreme weather conditions impacted shelter

and confidence then went on to wreak ruination

in the food supply; poultry and fish pre-broiled

to death unable to survive the heated torment.

Fruit dangling from trees cooked in the heat and

rotted. Crops failed to flower and bear seed to

feed the nations, and forage for livestock failed; 

in one fell swoop home and haven and food all

threatened. And this a mere dress rehearsal.

Chin Chuk Granny

 

When you are young and your mind is

churning and turning over everything that

you read and hear and learn and you begin

to trust your cerebral functioning and believe

in your intelligence and you have an opinion

to ventilate and few will listen because you're

simply too young to know the answers to

questions that the social order grapples with

you sigh and turn inward until eventually you

speak the code that others do who listen to you

since your opinion echoes theirs and any that

fail to are tucked safely away from scrutiny.

In time you are elderly and discover a very

different ethos and culture eludes you. Best

keep your experience and knowledge within 

airing it exclusively between peers. For in 

the opinion of earlier generations it is not 

wisdom that age has conferred upon you

but a certain arch unknowingness rendering

current social mores totally foreign. Whatever

you say is received as archaic and 'cute' not in

the sense of foxy intelligence but as one speaks

of the antics of a puppy, the innocence of a

child. From child to adult to senior = infancy.

Your senses fail but not your sensibilities.

One Strike and You're Out!

Ah, the sanctimony of triumphalism. A

political party that congratulates itself on

leaving socialism in its progressive wake

priding itself on breaking those social barriers

that keep the downtrodden in their place just

so recently deviated from its laser focus on

green environmentalism to elevate a black 

a woman and a Jew, all three embodied in

one strong personality to their leadership

an outstanding contribution to human rights

and equality in one brilliant swoop becoming

the talk of the political establishment envying

it for their coup yet not prepared to match the

choice which all too soon came undone when

the Jew in the black woman came to the fore

causing the party's executive grave excitation

when she dared to uphold the Jewish state's

right to exist, to defend itself from armed violence

thus 'threatening' the safety and security of those

among the aggressors evoking more sympathy

than the plight of Jewish victims. In the process

amply demonstrating that the aggressors' rabid

antiJewish violence is not all that far removed

from the more discreet Jew hatred of those who

will accept a Jewish presence as an unfortunate

background condition but never as a principled

moral position, thus disqualifying the candidate. 

Shock and Indignation!

Shocking, absolutely alarming news

broadcast on social media and the

international press, enough to make a sane

person doubt that the world is an equitable

place of justice, if not already convinced

by the state of reality surrounding doubters.

Imagine, the curs, making off with priceless

gems, artistically designed pieces worn

by the most distinguished of celebrities who

appear at Cannes in all the splendour of the

glory they have amassed. How could they

those conscienceless thieves, how could they? 

Well, cleverly of course. Their methods

guaranteed to bypass the vigilant eyes of all

security personnel assigned by 5-star hotels

housing the cream of society who travel with

these riches of gold and diamond jewellery.

All of which will be replaced at great cost

by the suffering pained owners deprived

of their goodies amply insured by suitably

pained insurers who gamble and lose at the

skilled hands of gamers who scheme and win.

The Protest Culture of Terrorists

In Syria and Iran citizens protest vehemently 

against venal corruption and the severity of 

conditions imposed upon them by tyrannical 

regimes which label them 'terrorists' and set troops 

to destroying their outlawed demonstrations;

'terrorists' dying in defence of their human rights. In 

Venezuela and Belarus voters decry sham elections 

by dictators who name them enemies of the state 

while violently repressing their protests. In Cuba 

and in Haiti hard times and corruption spark

revolutionary protests of violence and looting 

settled by tear gas and bullets. People die the death 

of 'terrorists'. Fatah and Hamas engineer lawful 

protests and demonstrations exemplified by attacks

against Israel carried out by loyal citizens who 

become criminals destined for death when their

protests turn against Fatah and Hamas. In the 

United States and Canada protests and angry

demonstrations are the work of 'far-right terrorists'

censored by their nations' governing bodies. 

Exculpation of exceptional circumstances extended 

to First Nations as 'activists' impose their rage on

'white settlers' and Christian churches, torching

venerable houses of worship, challenging ownership 

of the land, interfering with vital infrastructure and 

receiving plaudits from government accommodating

their right to 'settle  scores' with the descendants of 

European 'settlers' who meekly accept their guilt.

 

 

 

Herbaceous Pestilence

 

They've returned. They have their scheduled

appearance every summer and adhere to it

faithfully for this is their life's routine.

Nature designed them as she did all that

exists. They are predators though not of their

kind but rather insatiable devourers of types

of vegetation beloved of gardeners. Their

detested presence late this year rendering

hope in the heart of plant-lovers that they may

have gone amiss on their journey idling elsewhere

to wreak their particular havoc, ravaging

precious gardens. But no, there they are starting

out their journey in the forest, nesting in the 

crooks of trees, settling on wildflowers as

they fulfill their function in the chain of life

designed by the master gardener herself. They

are admittedly beautiful creatures with their

shiny carapace glinting green and gold in the

sun, but they are nonetheless detestable tiny

hordes of plant-destroying hyenas closing in for

the kill so that even ornamental trees voided of their

summer foliage succumb to their predations.

War Games

As an intuitive hypothesis born of

familiarity it is little wonder that an

insight into the male predilection for

conflict has its origins in the perception

of women whose child-bearing age is

behind them. The conundrum however

is thus: Is it the man in the boy or is it

the boy in the man that steers boys toward

the exciting challenges inherent in their

imagination of arranging toy soldiers and

their infantry and tanks and helicopters on

opposing sides in the mindset of take no

prisoners? Or is it the boy in the man where

anticipation is generated of superiority in

modern technology of laser-guided missiles

with the aid of artificial intelligence and

nuclear-powered submarines in the depths 

of forbidden waters enabling protagonists

to play their never-ending games of war?

The Indestructible Thespian

 Ach! What qualities!! Tall, handsome, bespoke and

charismatic, self-confident, perpetually smiling

he is the very personification of a well-adjusted

personage to match his inherited status and though

not a magus like his father he does aspire. Imbued

with his father's flamboyance and sense of presence

yet lacking the fine intelligence of the man who

possessed both virtues and faults, outstanding in

both arenas. The son is given to theatrics extremely

fond of garnering notice and admiration gathering both

handily, as thespians are wont to. Dramas which end

in elevating him in public opinion a delight to him

just as orchestrating surprises do the better to persuade

his adoring public he is a very special man. None

but he so casually and deliberately coiffed, his

considered attire on display both sober and playful

perfectly knotted tie and colourful patterned socks to

his father's boutonniere freshly plucked. His personality

sunny, on constant display, his character an enigma

with principles testing the winds of fortune. Through

the sheer energy of fitful chance he gains the confidence

of a voting public mesmerized by his blase assurances

while overturning all the classic symbols of democracy

intoning that he leads a post-nationalist nation on his

own initiative while ingratiating himself with a trade

colossus skilled in espionage and the purloining of other

nations' science and technology intelligence including

his own, genuflecting with admiration for that politburo's

ability to turn its dictatorial fortunes on a virtual dime.

Would You Believe It?

 Life: what a peerless learning experience it is. 

One would have to be an absolute dullard not to 

appreciate the carnival of absurdities exemplifying 

humankind's penchant for viewing the world and 

its events large and small through zany-tinted lenses 

of idiocy. There for all to  assess, some to assimilate 

into their own world view, while those with a sense 

of funnybone acumen shake their heads in wonder at 

the profligate waste of nature's endowment enabling

her creatures to reason intelligently in favour of wild 

speculative monstrosities of wishfulness. Who knew 

that the supreme deity sitting in smug judgement over 

humanity is so vain it ordains that adoration in loyalty 

of his great powers must be absolute otherwise life

is forfeit, enforcers of the divine will eager to rid the 

world of unbelievers for peace to prevail. Fact: history 

constantly corrects itself with the aid of the faithful 

pointing out that Christ was not a Jewish sage but a 

Palestinian Arab and Palestine as Judea a sinful fable 

of antiquity badly in need of correction. On the other 

hand history now identifies Elvis Presley's origins in 

Judaism. And wait: the Peoples' Pope is now set to 

bring his  holy aura in person to the Hermit Kingdom. 

Might Christ have been a closet Muslim if Allah chose 

to backdate the Prophet's abduction of Judaism's sacred 

scriptures for nascent Islam? Moral: live and learn.

 

The Unspeakable Source

Need you even ask?! Where have you been

sheltering the past thousand years and more?

What is common knowledge is a mystery to  you?

At risk of offending, I must ask: how can  you

possibly be oblivious to the obvious, pointed out 

time and again, the certainty that a specific clique 

is responsible for each and every -- no exceptions 

-- misery the world suffers. There has been no event 

too insignificant, none of great moment in world 

history that they've not initiated in their insatiable 

journey to conquer the world. Oh, you have questions 

yourself, do you? Those individuals you mention are 

of a piece with the cabal, meant to impress with their 

gifted genius offering little 'gifts' to the world meant 

to throw us off track, but they never succeed. We know 

the stench of their agenda of destabilization -- from 

world wars to assassinations of world figures and 

disasters of unimaginable devastation. News media 

may report accidents and natural phenomena but we

know the source. They're a scourge and a threat to

humanity. Even sacred texts quote passages fully

condemning the plots they conceive to defile and

bring ruination to civilization. The brilliance of

conjuring up an imaginative 'Holocaust' to elicit

pity and concern no longer works; we have seen the

evidence speaking volumes of their cupidity and cunning.

Enough said: As an intelligent thinking individual

committed to truth and justice, educate yourself.

She May Not

 

Late maturing? Well may you think. She is in 

her mid-50s and growing older year by year. The 

maturing process for her excludes independence. 

Of mind and of spirit. For she will explain without 

a demur that 'Charles will not allow it'. There are 

two offspring of their union, now adults. The

first-born a girl, followed by a boy. Her daughter 

is long gone though so like her mother. Her son 

sees fit to remain within the comfort of the family 

bosom. It is a tight little circle of three, rarely 

emerging from their shared home. Charles is a 

social recluse. Should an encounter with someone 

be unavoidable, eye contact can be, as he scurries 

on. His word is law, not to be defied. And nor 

will she. The penalty of so doing unknown to any 

but herself. She is forever on duty for he is the man 

and she the mere woman. A patterning rejected by 

her daughter, adopted by her son, for he is his father's 

son. She was an army brat, a bright and bubbly 

personality who knew how to follow orders. Her 

outgoing personality still shines briefly, absent 

his orbit. Beside him she is drab and lifeless. 

She had met a tall, dark stranger. Her chosen life.

Getting Ahead

Character reveals itself early in life. It is only

later that lack of character becomes evident. 

From their youngest days children distinguish

themselves as imbued with principle and a sense 

of justice while others betray themselves with 

all the signs of defiance of social mores and 

rejection of 'normalcy'. The argument revolving 

around nature and nurture aside, briefly view 

any child's actions and reactions and you know 

the future adult. No amount of exposure to values 

reflecting mores of social grace is capable of 

re-patterning that genetic endowment of opposition

disinterest and resentment ushering a mind 

resistant to altering its subconscious fully 

autonomous and comfortable with itself away from 

complacency. Conscience absent, acute awareness 

of self equals satisfaction in a mind fixed in the amber

of sociopathy -- certain to go far in this world.

The Politics of Guilt and Contempt

The new social order imposes its politics on social 

communities given to compassion and ownership 

of past wrongs to personally agonize over shameful

events long before their existence when misfortune

tormented victims of an unenlighted society with the

imposition of conditions favouring those like themselves

 while condemning others not of their proud heritage 

to humble servitude conditioning the lesser-favoured 

placed precisely where those of casual privilege could 

make best use of them. That time now long gone the

former servants now serving in authoritative positions 

of pride and honour but no matter. The vast bulk still 

smart over past denial of human rights while living 

amongst the great mass disappointed like themselves in 

life's promise of freedom and prosperity to confront the 

system that degraded them historically counting among

the transgressors all those whose ancestors took full 

advantage of the temper of the  times holding that some 

were born to slavery and others entitled to own them as 

slaves. The now-penitent former overseers obligingly 

prostrate themselves in guilt for past transgressions for 

the prospect of ingratiating  themselves with their accusers. 

While those once the object of abject misery sniff with 

the disdain of those gaining an upper hand and with venom 

well aforethought  reverse that long gone formula of master 

and slave acting with the authority of the victorious in the

sanctimonious entitlement to confer contempt on the 

sniveling mass begging forgiveness for blameless faults.

 

 

Urbanity Defined

Are we then indeed all born equal or is it a

smug assertion by those who have themselves

attained the comfortable position of sage to 

proclaim in support of their open-minded 

generosity? Born equal to what then, to whom? 

Someone whose genetic inheritance gains him 

an early death? The one whose misfortune at birth 

is a mental or physical disability? Is life a game 

of chance perhaps that where you are born and to

whom impacts your future? Sheer good fortune

or mere luck, no small favour, evades poverty

and the misery of oppression and conflict. Born 

equal to bear the lot that is ordained by when and 

where and to whom. But it represents a pleasant 

fiction notable for its sanctimonious origins that 

wealth and opportunity secretly sneer at but the 

common folk take uncommon comfort in.

The Energy of Hate

As a simple moral judgement the energy that 

is expended in human hatred of others is simply 

indefensible. On the other hand, there is nothing

simple about human emotions known to evade the 

inconvenience of reason and common sense

volatile, complex and deep-rooted in the sensibilities 

of historical culture and environmental exposure.

It is an elemental characteristic victims assign to 

ignorance and lack of worldly exposure but they 

are wrong; hatred of the other, racism, obsessive 

spite aimed at those historically despised permeates

all levels of society, seeps into academia, spreads 

its venom exponentially forever seeking out its 

victims to deride, threaten and oppress. A metaphor 

for life's many disappointments where assigning 

blame to the hated finds its target and relief? Or

perhaps the vicarious play of power over others 

by those seething in rage in their powerlessness.

Canada Day

 

There are reluctant celebrants this day marking

the anniversary-emergence of a great country vast 

in its land mass reflecting the northern hemisphere 

of natural resources abundant in mountains and 

prairies, forests and lakes once the sole habitat 

of Indigenous Indian and Inuit nations and now

a nation priding itself on a different heritage

that of multiculturalism where emigrants from all 

corners of the world converge to make the second 

greatest national territory on the globe their home.

A land of liberal mindset from the Pacific to the 

Atlantic stretching to the Arctic whose ambitions 

outstrip its command on the world stage while 

in domestic pride in equality and liberty opens wide

its arms absorbing multitudes escaping the torments 

of poverty and conflict, oppression and rampant crime 

to join within a lean population proudly peopling cities

farmland, towns and villages. Yet pride and shame 

mingle in a confused rally recognizing past inequities

in assuming ownership of land tracts once the possession 

of original inhabitants now mired in an ever-renewable 

pantomime of oppressor-settlers vs vibrant victimhood.