Come, Abide With Me

 

 

That message of human anguish writ large 

in the horror-haunted eyes, the bereft mouth 

wrapped in disbelief, the cries of desolation 

at the loss of life precious beyond life 

itself of the bereaved, wracked by pain 

and guilt at survival, willing to surrender

his own for the renewal of his dead children

his wife, sends shudders of compassion down

the onlooker's spine and the hot flush of

relief that this loss takes place in a war-torn 

country far from their own -- yet the bond of 

humanity's universal urge to cling to the last 

rare resource of life-breath urges the 

compassionate to extend from their mind 

to that of the stricken man's a faint ribbon 

of hope: Come here, we will give you haven

Here ... your future will be nourished...

Islam's Descent Into Hell

Such fine traditions these are in a culture

that heaps honour on the religion of peace

within which one death is a calamity as

though all of humanity has been afflicted

a faith that gives credence to its own survival

through conquest of the raw uncivilized areas

of the world refusing to recite the shahada 

the righteous penalty for which is death shared 

by any who betray the scripture that Prophet

Mohammed painstakingly set down at Allah's 

dictation as the spirit read instructions from the 

Torah and New Testament. A superior deist 

ideology so beloved of the faithful that they 

scatter in terror from the brutal malevolence of 

their tyrants, Islamist butchers whose yearning

for return of the glory of conquest pursues victims 

among their own in a clash of tribal, clan and 

sectarian death-throes while those surviving 

scatter desperately in their millions in search of

haven to the lands where Islam does not reign. 

 

 

Advancing Humanity

Civilization appears to have been bypassed 

entirely in areas of the world that cradle the

 worship of a fearmongering scripture instilling 

in the culpable primitive soul the compulsion to 

slaughter any who deny the ultimate primacy 

of their deity. Where civilization exists war and 

bloodshed have exhausted their ancient tenure in 

favour of agreeable tolerance. Their naive belief

in reciprocation and eventual trust becomes the 

hallmark of their enlightened status as evolved 

humanity. A state of being entirely foreign to the 

primitive mind exulting in its skill at manipulating 

the gullible convinced they must tolerate what they 

cannot alter by persuasion, effectively enabling 

those absent human conscience to promotion 

of their superior methodology steeped in terror 

and base oppression of a spiritless, soulless people 

lives forfeit to a docile and obedient faith in deity 

and fear of their tyrants, sneering at the failure 

of civilized humanity whose love of liberty and 

justice breeds malcontents with entitlements of 

unsettling, removing and electorally replacing 

benevolent rulers by whom they are governed.

 

 

 

The Compelling Strategy of Oppression

 

It is surely not ordained yet

the formula can be recognized

in distinguishing the fundamental

traits between those espousing

liberty and equality and their

contemptuous opposites for whom

sniveling support for the oppressed

speaks to the weakness of purpose

and pride of those countering the

expedience of subduing thoughts of

freedom and democracy. Strength

lies in the blueprint of hard power

ruled with the cold blade of terror

which sees few daring to oppose the

edicts of a tyrant whose armed thugs

enforce strident objectives of conquest.

And while those priding their goal of

peace achieved through diplomacy

naively trust their adversaries to honour

their ideal, they shrink in horror at

the stark evidence their adversaries

flaunt of their success in crushing an

unruly public in bloodshed and fear.

Fearsome Fanaticism

Could the contrasts be more starkly oppositional? 

Those lunatic tenets of a mind void of humanity 

for they are steeped deep in theistic dogma that 

life has one purpose only to 'submit' to the Almighty

dedicating life to expanding the mindless worship 

of a vengeful vision of creation whose possessive

claim of spreading peace through belief compels

the faithful to go forth and coerce, threaten or kill

to achieve adherents, for where belief lives there

also lives peace even while its stalwarts freely

distribute the gift of death to those who balk. The 

obverse is that where resistance to heavenly edicts 

exist there lives war. The House of Peace struggles 

with the despised denial of the House of War

the twisted concept the product of malevolent minds 

yet so powerful a magnet is it that there is no

scarcity of believers prepared to martyr themselves 

and others so that  all may appear for judgement

the murder/martyr lionized, victims consigned to hell.

Seasonal Transition

There is a seasonal conspiracy afoot

in the deep interior of the forest

where dark shade and dappled 

sunlight exercise their perpetual

confrontations and now that

late summer approaches light

is subsumed in the emergence

by steady stealth of dusk furtively

escorting a peremptory night where

days become shorter and lengthy

nights ascendant. Wildflowers 

alert to the inevitable are fading

while bees become frantic in their

search to harvest waning pollen

and nectar from perishing plants.

 

Hypersonic Physics/Microwaves

In the bad old days of the Battista regime

Havana syndrome was the epitome of

bacchanalian, roistering good times the

night-life so beloved by American elites who

thoroughly approved of sin city. How things 

have changed where Cuba has become the social 

epitome of all that is rigorously good in devotion 

to the idealism of Castro communism where 

now some mysterious force expresses its 

distaste of U.S. diplomacy by harnessing an 

eerie power of skulduggery aimed at vulnerable 

brains to disorient and distort their purpose

a punitive exercise with no explanation and 

no idea its source with no remedy for the sad

sufferers. A situation hushed and hidden despite 

the plaintive cries of abandonment while those 

whose evil work it is blandly continue for no 

smoking gun reveals their devilish identity beyond

the unspoken knowledge that an outlier power's 

proficiency in taming unheard-of scientific advances 

in physics has as yet no parallels elsewhere. 

Tender Affection for Animals

We are infinitely more behaviourially complex yet

shallow than popular wisdom or observation, narratives 

and folk tales believe us to be. Observe an individual's 

treatment of other creatures with whom we share 

the pleasures of existence and you know who among them 

is a decent human being. A very nice bit of reassurance.

Those who maltreat an animal will do the same and 

worse to their fellow humans; conversely gentle

treatment of animals denote a gentle soul. Don't look 

for affirmation at the German volk's storied tenderness 

for companion animals' welfare without recalling the 

mass murders undertaken during the Holocaust. The 

governor of New York state departs the official mansion

in sex-aggression disgrace leaving behind the dog 

with whose image he assured the electorate he was 

faithful to their administrative needs as chief

executive. In the grips of a new pandemic wave of

variant concern, Australian town councils now kill 

shelter dogs rather than risk potential infections 

from those handing them over to those eager to give 

them haven though neither group represents alarming 

infections. Weep for the mendacity and inhumanity of

those in whom we entrust the fate of dogs and men.

 

 

Our Visiting Bestiary

 

It's a little brown rat. And it is seated

furtively on the floor of my porch

selectively taking advantage of what we

put out for the mixed bestiary that

visit us. Its fur is brown and it has a 

small fat rump with a shortish tail. It

doesn't know I'm watching and waiting

for it to turn toward me so I can see the

little face head on. It cannot know how

despised a creature it is held responsible

for the spread of historical plagues.

Not this little creature but some faroff

members of its extended family. They

have a bad reputation that taints humanity's

view of the species but it would have

no understanding of that, too. Among

the squirrels and chipmunks, rabbits and

skunks, raccoons and cardinals that tend

to visit none others carry such a burden.

To us, he's a curiosity, a wild creature

taking advantage of opportunities while

remaining vigilant lest a traditional enemy

living a pampered life in a nearby house

stalk and threaten him with certain death.

 

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

In the interests of clarity it is always best to begin a story 

at its start and to start this story one must point out that 

the world's colossal number of refugees today stream 

out of those Muslim countries which have distinguished 

themselves by their totalitarian rule of oppression and 

terror and where tribalism and sectarianism become the 

guiding principles tacked onto rigid sharia law. Those who

rebel are destined to die at the retributive hands of their 

tormentors. In this spirit of cleaving to the one true 

religion spurning all others the 57 nations that comprise 

the Organization of Islamic Cooperation conclude that 

following due consideration of recent circumstances

it is incumbent on all 'sides' of the Afghan conflict to 

live together in brotherly harmony a condition to which 

women are excluded as the 'spoils of holy war'. The 

Islamist terrorist brigands that have spoilated the country 

in their zeal to unseat a constitutional government is 

therefore viewed as the accepted incumbent not the 

terrorist horde that they are whose exploits have caused 

millions to flee their country. To this is solemnly added 

the desire to see the international community take up 

its humanitarian torch in providing charitable funding 

so the country may be rebuilt in the image of Islam. 

The end of this story? The West opening wide its 

tried-and-true arms in welcome to the traumatized 

as Islam's universal message of peace resonates.

How Sweet It Is

There, there's that silhouette
lodged deep in my heart. I see
him even at that distance, in
that crowd descending the airport
escalator, even as his father
declares "there he is!" And,
there he is, as we grasp one
another, we and our youngest.

His face now defined and finely
chiseled with his own years
on the very cusp of a half century,
his smile broad, this child of ours,
asking how we are, seeing how
we are beside him, sheaves
of grey in his beloved hair.

How strange it is to welcome
briefly home the child we loved,
cherished and nurtured then bade
farewell as he confidently and with
ease sought his own life where we
are mere postscripts. How sweet
it is for the distance breached,
hearing his broad laugh directly
beside us in the gentle flesh.

 

 

 

The Baking Sun

 

The sun, a white-hot disc

of incandescent flame

sends its fiery fingers

probing every surface on this

Earth to bake to a fine degree

in the absence of companion wind

tempting forests themselves

to burst into scorching fires

as drought and heat dry 

prairie crops shrivelling to nothing

fodder now for insects

marauding fields in a craze of

heat-induced madness while

animals creep toward scant shade

denied on mountain slopes where

alpine growth festers and dries

as the life-affirming properties of

the sun withdraw and simmer.

 

 

Divine Destiny

Oh look, how pleasantly civil it is when

neighbours get on so well together and

all the more so when it is neighbouring

nations for whom the tensions of unfortunate

disagreements evaporate when the calming

effect of a shared piety results in a theocracy

bringing serenity and peace to an otherwise

frequently conflicted region of the world.

The leaders, comfortable in their devotion

to the higher power they espouse themselves

exercise a high power of cynical oppression

on their unappreciative, fearful people. Have

you noticed how the world's refugee population

is swelling, with no relief from increasing

numbers, and they all happen to exit those

same countries in search of peace and liberty

elsewhere? Elsewhere is exasperated having

no wish to absorb any greater numbers than

have already imposed their frantic presence

there. Yet sanctimony arguing with compassion

sees no solution to the enigmatic situation.

 

Serenity

 

It is estranged from urban life

and so may you be. Between the

rugged, towering mountains of the

coastal range and the deep blue of

the Pacific it rests as a refuge and so

may you. Arbutus and pines range on

the rocky shore where deer forage

and seals raise their young in the

waters nearby. At night the moon is

your friend illuminating the dark blue

velvet of sky in a penumbra of light 

echoed in the stilled ocean vacant of

wind where a path of luminescence

paves the way from Earth to heaven.

Taking Flight

Those words take on new meaning

now, weighted as a metaphor for fear 

and escape when a people fearing the 

malevolent oppression of deist tyrants 

returning to the theocratic rule that

suppressed their humanity making of

life a vacant existence dedicated to the

concept of worshiping a jealously

demanding deity assigning the duty of

gaolkeeper to the fanatical butchers

of music, song and dance, courtesy

and love whose mendacious greed

and penchant for deadly punishment

has torn souls into shards of ice frozen

in fear. Those young men taking flight

from their tormentors, choosing to

surrender life as they clung pecariously

to departing planes only to plunge to

their untimely deaths, was it terror at

their bold adventure in flight they felt 

or perhaps exhilaration in escape? 

 

 

Fated

Make no mistake, it is a moral offense

against human dignity, a criminal act

of inhumane disposition to free girls

and women from the shackles of a

religion whose edicts are defined

at the pleasure of men transcribing

sacred verse in their own image of

owners and disposers, judges and juries

in whose interests females are but the

means of leisure pleasure and punitive

measures of violent gratification, mere

vessels to be taken, used and discarded.

Once liberated from the steel grasp of

victimhood the taste of liberty and self

determination becomes etched in hopes

for the future. But when the past becomes

the future the cruelty of descending from

a person to an object once more is beyond

devastating where life's meaning swiftly

evaporates as the fanatic raptors reclaim

their spirit-deadened bleak possessions.

 

 

Waiting ...

Waiting...

With the limitless patience of the faithful,
they wait, imperturbably confident and 
assured, the seers and the shamans, the
yogis, the sufis and the swamis, near
Chichen Itza.  Their followers worldwide
besotted with the spiritual chill of the
unknowable void of being will settle for
alternates.  Awaiting the spirals of
heavenly light promised to invade the heads
of believers, from their vast galactic journey,
they weep in fear and joy.  A cosmic dawn
arrives to gift the worthy with telepathy and
they will loose themselves from the
niggardly magnetic bonds of Earth, to
levitate and flee its constricting confines
set to implode.  Electrical vortexes
arrived from the galaxy's centre bid them
hither and they will respond, leaving fear,
embracing love, bathed in the light of
transformative cleansing of the soul.  For
they have discovered true salvation, fleeing 
the stagnating brutal influence of life as
we think we know it.  That is the revelation,
the cataclysmic upheaval that engages 
humanity, one with the golden light
of divine forgiveness, an arcane alchemy 
of  life bypassing death, the final frontier
to incandescent longevity.  If not immortality
then why not?  Thirteen and counting.
Look...at us, at them, the pathetic ones -
quivering with the misery of unrequited life.

 

 

 

The Ultimate Neurosis

So fundamental to a subliminal yearning 

in human nature the enduring belief of an 

infinite power of creation manifested as an

unknowable but all-knowing intelligence 

surpassing any and all descriptives the 

human mind can conceive. A supreme element 

whose origins is unimaginable but omniscient

toward whom praise and fear and love in 

equal measure assures one's own survival yet 

to obey the precepts given humankind as a 

direct order the faithful willingly sacrifice 

their lives in sacred martyrdom. The more 

stringent the rules and the role of believers the 

fiercer their loyalty to Him on High the sternest 

of commanders to the legions devoted to the 

sublime deity, the deadlier the malevolence of 

their wholesale strikes in the barbarity of their 

essence. All in the name of the all-powerful and 

loving god for whom death is a gift. Armies of 

the faithful are unstoppable; in this realm there

is no delusionary principle beyond devotion.

The Summer Forest

The forest is celebrating deep summer

embracing the heat and humidity casting

the shadow of its canopied leaf mass on

its interior; cool, dark and shaded yet

inviting the wind to enter and gently stir

rain-laden branches creating micro rainfalls

after all-night storms that broke into dawn

with crepuscular light intensifying the

green shades of conifers and deciduous

the forest understory and bracken replete

with ripening berries and feral apples as the

morning sun filters its bright rays within. The

forest stream swollen with stormwater and

the meadow astride it abuzz with pollinators

harvesting goldenrod and purple loosestrife

in a landscape tempered by inclination to

nature's instructions and her elements.

The Ruling Kingdom

The formula is a simple one based on the 

human condition of capricious duplicity

avarice and cowardice. First came the carrot

and then the stick, the classic temptation-strike 

duo that has served history well, perfected

in this era by an ancient people whose patience

awaiting their time to take the world stage 

has come in their estimable leader's mood.

The acquisitive world yearned for cheap 

convenience and durable goods with built-in 

obsolescence and China happily volunteered

gathering to itself manufacturing drained 

from the globe and amassed where control 

and output could build a treasury. The power

of investment and hegemonic autocracy now 

propels the Middle Kingdom to its final destiny

the Ruling Kingdom. The Great Wall kept the 

barbarians out. China now builds a new wall 

within which all are snared in the Belt and Road.

He Rules

Implacable, China neither forgives nor forgets. 

Its Janus mask has slipped but this is quite 

deliberate. Cross China and you see the face 

of condemnation, the voice urging that you 

see the errors of your ways and swiftly make 

amends. Relations will be restored but the arm 

that holds you at a certain remove will be 

lengthened permanently although the smile will

persist reassuringly. Have the good sense to 

smile obligingly at whatever China does and no

harm will befall you. In so doing bear in mind 

that the laws of your land meshing with that of 

the global community, the values you hold dear

your enduring commitments must be less

enduring, your laws more flexible, your values 

corrected. Beijing will brook no criticism for

the People's Republic assents to nothing with 

a whiff of critique in its inexorable drive toward

world conquest. Err by offending Xi and his 

rictus smile will become a death sentence ... 

if not for you then for any he delegates to 

sacrifice to the alter of Chinese pique and such 

deaths may not be laid at the dais of the throne 

upon which he sits but at your own humble hearth.

 

 

Red In Tooth And Claw

At its most basic the rules of warfare

are fairly simple and require no clarity

for the reaction is visceral: kill the other 

before you are killed. Civilizational mores 

over  history have graduated the process 

to the present where response is linked with

proportionality, a degree dependent on 

who it is delivering responding blows to 

whom. During the days of the Roman Empire 

of benevolent dictatorship proportionality 

was a deserved response; challenge Rome

and the penalty was crucifixion. Such niceties 

of humanity weighing the measures of just

acceptability thumbs the scale in subtle social 

prejudice whereby a reviled state of impeccable 

honour yet viewed with a jaundiced eye of 

malice must wear the mantle of disapproval 

from the international community merely

for defending itself from viciously hostile attacks 

meant to slaughter its citizens but in striking back 

should citizens of the attacker meet death

through a corresponding return fire it becomes

crucified in the realm of global opprobrium. 

People Rule

The original concept of democracy to convince 

a population of their obligation to take their turn in 

addressing the public realm for the greater good of 

the public weal and to ensure that all assented has 

strayed far from its ancient ideal where now a voting 

public elevates political parties and their leaders 

to govern in an atmosphere of polarization of values 

in the reality that arose where only political animals

assumed public office while citizens endowed with 

decisive acumen, altruistically inclined and resolute 

in their integrity are disinterested in being politically 

inclined. The public is left with moral scoundrels 

whose focus is self and party in a continuum of 

self-serving judgements secure in their role as civic

leaders until the public tires of their maladroit rule 

and elects another of like ilk to become the new 

scoundrel while decrying the misfortune of those who 

live under dictatorial realms of mismanagement and

tyranny the people beleaguered bereft of the agency

to effect change, unaware of the near similarities

when the substance of choice is a matter of degree.

Pride Goeth

How humiliating it can be to be ushered into 

the reality of pride pricked at the table of social 

consciousness when just desserts is served as 

the main course following a peek at the entree 

plated empty of the brilliant cuisine generated by

the knowledge of one who knows everything.

When, with the casual assurance of a botanist

which you are not, you authoritatively

pointed out to a novice the cherries ripening

on a feral forest tree. Consternation on the

bemused face of your companion as she blurted

but..but... that's a hawthorn! And you were

quick to change the subject unable to muster

an acknowledgement of your lack of mastery

in a realm of nature where you 'excelled'.

 My, how that smarts, Ms. Smarty-pants!

Now the question lingering in your mind is

what is more humbling; the realization of 

your absurd error or your inability to own it?

 

Deicide

The divine right of kings by order of the Almighty 

to give and to take ... life as in all other exchanges 

of property. And so did Herod the Great, father to 

Herod Antipas. One the possessor of the rites of kingship

the other scheming to inherit the right to rule. Herod

wrote Josephus, had his most cherished royal wife 

put to death believing the slander that besmirched her 

and in death mourned the woman he loved, the very

woman who loathed him as the murderer of her

Hasmonean grandfather, whose throne he usurped 

of Caesar's favour. In time his sons of Mariamne's 

issue accused of treachery were also executed

their offspring Herod's living treasury. A commoner 

wife gave Herod a son whose features were despised

by all of Judea in the knowledge he had conspired to

succeed to the throne through deceit and malevolence

more than content to accede to Rome's command in

the crucifixion of a Jew who scorned him as a  'fox'.

Being God

The Grimm Brothers knew human nature and they wrote 

of what they knew gearing their fables to the men of 

tomorrow when children read their tales of morality 

to take from them what they would in an early introduction 

to human failure, communal and individual dysfunction. 

The Grimms no doubt sought to alert of a grim future 

certain one day to arrive were the world not prepared 

to deter a catastrophic outcome as a sole dominant figure 

featuring an overwhelming ideology of extreme tyranny 

appears at last to challenge views of elemental human 

rights. Brothers Grimm spun a telling tale of a fisherman 

and a magical fish promising a reward of riches, kingship

the moon and the stars stopping short at conferring on 

the fisherman the powers attributed to a heavenly host. 

Heedlessly the world steeped now in its mood of serene 

contemplation oblivious of that grave scenario sleepwalks 

into its future as an ideology and its smiling, grimly 

unctuous proponent promises global unity, amity and 

harmony in his command disposing to overturn the fable.