The Lethal Sword of the Hidden Mahdi

Even as the universe is expanding 

growing evermore vast and distant

our globe is contracting becoming

smaller and more transparent. No longer

are borders capable of constricting the

curiosity of neighbours in this era of

mass communication and cyber intrusion

and those considered enemies have at 

their disposal many assets the finest in

secret revelations, humint, conscripting

citizens of tyrannical threats to human

existence to tell all. And so it is that a

nation dominated by a theistic overseer

plots a cataclysmic event to destroy those

who doubt its formidable links to the divine

defying a world body of nations condemning

its secretive drive to attain a lethal force

to unleash a redeeming Apocalypse where

only the just and the faithful may survive.

In Worship of Clean

 

Is it not strangely paradoxical that

humanity considers survival without

freedom a quaint notion to be dispelled

through revolutionary zeal unseating

tyrannical dictators so all may be free

and live in the luxury of liberty as befits

intelligent beings. Yet that discerning

humanity shackles itself to rituals in

pursuit of the unattainable; to cleanse

their habitation of the stuff of the universe.

A cleanliness mania dictates what tyrants 

do not, that vast energy be spent in the

endless cycle of sweeping, dusting and

mopping up our very own shed cells and

those of our pets and with that the dust

of distant stars in galaxies far off not

averse to drifting endlessly to find rest

in our homes. And we obliged to tidy up

what nature discards. In so doing shackling

ourselves to the dismal mania of routine

fixing our destiny in worship of clean.

 

 

 

Imperious China's Gifts

A great nation truly distinguished by great gifts 

heaped upon the world by Imperial China whose 

philosophic understanding of humanity and the 

courageous act of living were matched by the 

production of its sublime artistic talents leaving 

priceless calligraphic, exquisite porcelain, matchless

architecture and representational art as an aesthetic

testament to human achievement supported by its 

recognition of a system of bureaucratic meritocracy.

Gone, long gone that era, in its place an imperious 

China its goal to set its mark of ownership of world 

resources and in return gifting the globe with labour 

courtesy its immense population-skilled production 

urged on by the Chinese Communist Party jealous of 

its reputation as a viper is of its territory incorporating

into its reserves Tibet and East Turkestan the better 

to enslave its unwilling human elements while genetic 

riches of the region produce the fine minds of scholars

scientists, writers and surgeons. All called upon by 

their benevolent tyrant to serve their country at home 

or abroad sharing secret intelligence to sharpen the 

sword of offence. Gifts of the modern era generous in 

chemical opioids and pathogenic viruses to bring 

the world to its virtual knees while the keepers of 

that ancient civilization's assignation with destiny 

with the blank vision of statuary, revel in spite.

 

Contorted New World

A strange kind of human social progress

this is, abandoning an earlier era when

respect for process and method saw those

eager to leave their homelands to migrate

elsewhere in response to opportunity or the

urge to escape repression, oppression and

abuse, make application for immigration

prepared to await the outcome, hoping for

acceptance and if they arrived at their new

adopted country prepared to learn its history

customs and values, obeying its laws

anxious to become an integrated part of the 

whole. Refugees too, escaping state-level 

human rights abuses or conflict arrived to 

take their place with gratitude for their rescue

in the orderly process whereby nations select 

those they deem capable of integration and 

conformation. A new era has dawned where

failed societies ruled by tyrants, nations where 

criminal gangs challenge government for authority

countries at war with themselves and their near

neighbours bleed migrants escaping the confines 

of uncertainty and fear marching en masse

declaring themselves entitled to bypass legal

systems and other nations' will as they seek out

those countries identified with wealth, defying

security and laws in violent rebellion against

exclusion. Migrant groups seeking a better life

scorning their haven's heritage, culture and

values, bringing their own establishing enclaves 

of resentment and rage that the culture and 

values of the their own heritage are not the

universal norm as they set about with firm intent

to establish there the very conditions they fled. 

 

 

If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem

 

Ancient creatures and ancient identity rites

of inherited biological memory from the primal

to the present. Those that venture far afield in

nomadic travels faithfully return to their destined 

roots and so salmon and eels, butterflies and 

penguins, terns and wildebeast cross global divides 

rediscovering belongings of the past. There finding 

harbour to ritually spawn and beget their young 

before recommencing their endless generational 

wandering. And so too does humanity recall in 

inherited memory its ancient past of ceremony

and tilling the earth, the erection of monuments to

a higher order of faith, the resistance of conquest

and struggle against the powers of oppression in

defiance of a dynasty of authority and command

that led to the chaos of violent destruction and death

tormented turmoil, displacement, migration and 

exodus whose diaspora nurtured ancient memory

yearning toward returned rediscovery to join the

past with reborn presence celebrating the future.

 

 

guilty, Guilty ... GUILTY!!

There can be no denials. There were witnesses

mind-bogglingly observing the heinous act. 

Three men beside themselves with disbelief. 

What they saw cannot be disputed. A video -- 

those ubiquitous revealers of reality reflected 

the brutal audacity of the perpetrator. Leading

the outraged witnesses to  contact authorities: a 

Black man racing through a white neighbourhood.

What to do? How to respond with courage and

determination in defence of the community from

assault on their dignity, their history, their pride?

Rifles, grab the rifles, into the truck, head off the 

criminal. Theirs the duty to serve and protect 

their community; he must be stopped at all costs. 

And, brave fellows they were, he was. They put 

an end to the unspeakable incursion. At age 25

he should have known better. One might have 

thought that from impressionable childhood on

there was no assuming he had the freedom and the 

right as an American proud and free to flaunt an 

age-old discourtesy to his betters. So then

he earned his comeuppance. Well, didn't he?

Notes From A Skeptic

 

Yes, there are wistfully confused times

when boys wish they had a womb and girls 

long for a phallus, the former to create not 

merely procreate, and the latter to exude the 

confidence of physicality. These perplexing 

whims as the young learn to grow into their 

character life roles are not shared by nature 

whose blueprint was to divide humanity into 

separate yet linked destinies in a harmony of 

male and female, each complementing the other 

with the end purpose of survival as a species.

Yet the social order has undergone a strange

paroxysm of re-alignment whereby that

sometimes-uncertainty is celebrated and

encouraged no longer merely countenanced 

while other elements of society declared there are

no performance differentials between genders

assigning women to professions once solely

occupied by males, although males are far less

likely to direct themselves to roles tethered

in a more conformist era to females. The

world is teetering on the edge of a starkly

unhappy revolution, the mystique of gender

opposites in their attraction deposed, withering.

Whatever makes them happy nature dejectedly

mumbles, like any good mother anxious to

see her offspring happy. Are you happy now?

 

 

 

Loaded for Bear

 

Innocent of intent while carrying an

assault-type weapon? Oh yes, the intent

was to be  helpful in a situation known to

get out of hand when people protest their

human rights and in the process assault

the human right of others. Violence begets

physical harm, and the intent was to offer

medical services as would a knight in shining

armour. In place of a sword an AR-15

automatic rifle for this is the 21st Century

after all where knights come in varied

colours and intentions. This was no 

violation of a criminal code that punishes

killers with incarceration, it was the impact

of fear in the mind of a youth raised to 

believe in his inherent right to ownership of

a lethal weapon. In some parts of the world

a frontier mentality reflects a frontier

system of justice where the evidence negates

the reality of murder, plain and simple.

 

Unknown Realm

 

Wallace and Darwin knew humanity

as a gregarious, curiosity-ridden lot

responding to their environment by

adaptation as a survival mechanism

rewarding those most adaptable in their

bold assumptions second-guessing nature.

The creating force is not so readily

interpreted even though humanity is

satisfied with their smug self-assurance

that they have reached the pinnacle of

evolution. For hasn't she unleashed a grim

surprise in an unseen pathogen whose

virulent presence is returning humanity

to its primeval sources. Avoidance of

strangers bearing unwanted gifts, a new

suspicion of advanced science, compulsion

to covet rare resources, solace in retreat

and a pioneer in the evolution of remote

connections advantaging himself into the

realm of burgeoning billions advocating 

the mirror-reality of remote imaging where

humanity may now leave reality behind.

Myth and Metaphor

Fire is anger, water the tears of grief.

Either is capable of devastation on this

fragile planet. The ancients warned that

evil deeds lead to never-ending torment in

the fires of hell, the bowels of the Earth

Satan's sadistic playground, the destiny of

humanity's ill-doers. Tyrants and murderers

in the custody of Charon the end-of-life

Boatman crossing the River Styx to the

Gates of Hell and there they enter, writhe and

suffer for all eternity. Those in the fullness

of life in grief for their lost ones weep their

own rivers of tears in the hope their destiny

will bring them to loftier Gates where their

endurance of life's travails may allow entry

to Paradise forevermore. Yet the paradise on

Earth lies neglected, forlorn and looted

of its treasures, the balance of nature and

existence straddling the rim of the world

where the guardian of all sends her noted

emissaries, fire and water, to warn of

impending disaster lest we cease and desist.

Alpha Predator

The blueprint of primal survival:

relentless aggression. The big fish

swallows the little fish, again and again

for limits there are none. Eliminating

challengers and opponents in a ruthless

blueprint of conquest. There is nothing

subtle in the process and progress that

averted eyes and quiet horror cannot

identify hoping to be spared for none 

are, in the relentless drive to absorb

territory and resources sowing trepidation

and fear the better to silence critics

fearing their turn. Silent cunning with

its power screened by an inscrutable

rictus of expressionless patience the grim

colossus moves with stealth and diminishing

caution in lock-step with success while

trembling victims appeal to those not yet

imprisoned in the embrace of the tyrant

to help, though they extended no aid to

others earlier captured in the fine steel net of

the predator's ingathering subjection of

one hapless, helpless nation after another

all destined to become satellites of China.

 

 

The Woebegone Royal

With the great good fortune of an appealing 

physical presence and the cunning intelligence 

to submerge the scorpion within, celebrity status 

can arrive when chance and opportunity offer 

their services.

 And thus it was that an infantile prince became 

mesmerized by an exotic enchantress catapulting 

her instantly into a personage of great distinction 

and public interest who discovered how effective 

expressed victimhood can be in claiming compassion

from a wide, adoring public. 

No naif she, intuitively grasping how the presentation

of a frail vulnerability exposed to the haughty

entitlement of royals barely deigning to notice a new 

decidedly unroyal family member in their midst

has the delicious potential of arousing flaming

indignation in the minds and hearts of those

commoners who like herself nurse resentment

and in the process cleverly manipulates events

spotlighting herself as wronged and those of

majesty born oppressively spiteful. 

Wounded is not she, hugging victory close

but those who in reality warmly clasped their 

prince's bride to their company, but she played her 

game well degrading them and elevating herself 

to find wealth and admiration mounting her on the

throne of deceitful slanderers, this royal victim.

 

 

Nature's Absent Symmetry

Can that primeval which was never unified

be splintered? Beginning at the very inception

of humanity's rise it was ever thus; those

capable of meeting adversity, of adaptation

were the survivors their ever evolving traits

enabling continuation of the species. From

the very beginning there were divisions in

the differentiation of male and female where

equality long in the future to be voiced ever

eluded. Humanity is divided on many fronts

winnowing out the frail and incapable while

wisdom accrued to those whose cerebral

function soared over the masses cowed by

obstacles others shunted aside. Divisions

identify the weak and the strong, the rich and

the poor, tyrants and slaves, the hale and the

diseased. The process of elimination at the speed

of generational aeons unfolding as nature endures

her endless search for the principle of perfection.

 

 

Doubly Betrayed

A destination of unparalleled beauty

favoured by nature in a plenitude of

mountains and lakes, forests and rivers

deserts and history. Its breathtaking vistas

and abundance of natural resources call

to nature's creatures seeking haven from

chaos experienced in lesser-favoured

landscapes. Here, where untamed wilderness

and giant forest groves of ancient vintage

thrive in nature's gift to all sentient beings

of her creation. Forgetful nature suddenly

failed to recall her favouritism inundating

the immensity of the flowing rivers and

the land nestled between in a tumultuous

series of overwhelming rainstorms lashing

valleys and mountains in ferocious winds

creating a catastrophic atmospheric river

washing away mountain sides in great mud

and rockslides extinguishing all that moves.

Such unfortunate timing when earlier nature 

absentmindedly sent down a hovering heat dome

to deep-sizzle the interior in wildfires and mass

evacuations where floods might have countered

that grave natural phenomenon, but did not.

 

 

 

Not To Worry

Consider: the world owes much to benefactors

Russia and China for their careful stewardship 

of space, alert to clean up the detritus they 

shoot into the great yonder; satellites whose 

useful life has expired. Of course to do so they

 must launch missiles to unerringly target their 

space junk and in the process create a multitude 

of fragments, large and small that will in time 

fall to Earth or possibly dent a space station. 

Certainly their space rival  is discommoded 

with the situation of what they claim is the

weaponization of space where either is capable 

of aiming directly for U.S. assets and accidents 

do happen anywhere. But no sweat the outliers 

assert. There are absolutely no underhanded 

intentions in this display of superb technological

marksmanship, merely a message quite aptly 

interpreted, and unfortunately, misunderstood ...

 

 

Cleansing The World

In the latest iteration of humanity's

fervent embrace of a divine creator

a viper's pit yawned empty as its 

dwellers emerged to the light of another

day determined to darken the world

with the spilled blood of any declining

to venerate and dedicate their lives to 

the pleasure and direction of the Almighty

who delivered humanity to the justice

meted out by its barbaric hordes of 

warriors. Among them those who

decided not only must non-believers

succumb to the sword of righteousness

but believers of tepid adherence for whom

the spirit of conquest failed to resonate.

It is when the fanatic devoted failing to

reflect the inner spirit of death's cleansing

powers that the pillars of devotion demand

and the various parties fall out in a raw

conflict of sanctimonious threats that the

world can breathe relief when they turn their

slaughter relentlessly on one another.

Locked in Mortal Combat

Flippant bon mots do that, they make us chuckle

they're so on the mark and yet spontaneous

hitting on the right notes. We're not chuckling now

the world really is on trajectory to hell in a proverbial 

handbasket and no one knows how to stop it even as

a dread unseen and sinister zoonotic somehow

unleashed ravishes the world of humankind where 

despite millions of deaths and viral sickness humanity 

proves itself an unrepentant predator, a carnivore 

of the weak and the vulnerable in raging conflict 

creating destitution and homelessness, disruptions

that create devastating food scarcity victimizing

the helpless. Humanity like an ancient gladiator

syringe in one hand, sword in the other smiting

one side then the other facing multiple venomous 

threats only to be felled in the final curtain call.

Man The Wise

What then if the wisest of our species

in defiance of the widely held belief

that as we evolve so does our intellect

predated the psychology of humanity

and in their vast wisdom conjured the

vision of a creator-deity . Theirs a defined

purpose; to infuse within humankind the

need to conform, to obey, to sympathize

and empathize for these are qualities that

humanize and in the process make conflict

less likely. The lessons of the Golden Rule

and principle of Do Unto Others embraced

as an antidote to anger, impulse and violence.

And so was born trust and faith however

tainted by nature's compulsion of survival

leading to conflict. Nature, the Earth Mother

nurturing yet indifferent. God, implacably

preaching, warning, cajoling, threatening.

One a proven reality, the other a symbol.

To Persevere

As a total percentage of the global

population there are vanishingly few

of that ethno-religious group that

perplexingly tends to elicit suspicion

and hatred disproportionate to their

share of humanity's proclivity to express

its distaste for groups so different from

the prevailing majority anywhere. For

there is a cohesion among that detested

group that somehow identifies them well

beyond a shared religion, for many have

none yet most have attributes of patience

and hope, a wish to be tolerated, and amongst

themselves mysteriously arises a higher

degree of ingenious cerebral thought than

occurs elsewhere. Whatever it is, that odd

element of 'other' that offends the aggregate

it results in a willingness to countenance

contempt without reason and violence to a

degree that further diminishes their presence

as a people bound by destiny to persevere.

Remembrance

 

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh

day of the eleventh month of the calendar 

we sacrifice a moment of silence in

contemplation of those who once sacrificed 

their lives as they fell in combat against

an ideology whose perpetrators

threatened to storm the ramparts of the

free world for whom justice and liberty

meant peace, security, good governance.

Theirs but to do or die, and they did both

in service to humanity and in the process 

committed themselves to acts of physical harm

and death at their hands to stop the forces 

that countenanced mass murder as a means 

to their sinister end. Fiercely loyal to their own 

leaders and nations' aspirations combatants 

on both sides viewed one another as enemies-

to-the-death and in that spirit wounded and 

killed with the abandonment of righteousness. 

The arbiters of fascism lost their cause to the 

followers of democracy leaving their legacy 

of misery and bereavement to the future for their

descendants to mourn and to disown those

acts of violent aggression against those of

courageous defiance. They died, we grieve.

Nightsport

Nightsport

The grey shadows of an
overcast afternoon in
the woods have crept away,
no longer there, and in their
place a darker shadow has
fallen, stifling the dim light
that lingers without hope
of prevailing for there
is no forestalling nightfall
chasing dusk's brief warning.

And so, the forest sighs
and prepares for sleep, while
prey whisper urgent messages
hiding in their havens, and
predators prepare to emerge
onto their hunting fields,
sharpening tooth and talon,
preparing to greet nature's
nocturnal challenge to the
pursuit of species survival

 

Sic Transit Gloria

Coarse, vaingloriously confident in his 

singularly obnoxious narrative as a unique 

success in the world of commerce, vulgar as

a president whose reputation matched his 

indelible presence, the high regard, trust and 

dependence the world entrusted that great 

world power with in eclipse, plummeted while 

political dissonance split left from right in a 

petulantly polarized country that yearned for 

release from the obloquy their president earned 

from foreign sources enraging his supporters

frustrating his detractors. Perhaps unsurprisingly 

for a nation so politically split his replacement's

agenda reversed national trajectories so while

the right was left behind -- the left turned right

where they left off. One infirm of mind and

intellect, the other uncertain of age-ravaged body 

and a wandering mind for whom it took no time 

at all for the sheen of competent reliability to

tarnish, leaving the electorate torn and piqued

with nothing accomplished, a shattered nation.

 

 

Friend or Foe?

Who goes there? Friend or foe?

Sometimes you'll never know.

Just like nations interacting in collegial 

mode sharing ideologies others averse to 

their views of society and politics are kept at bay

intelligence agencies from either source

hard at work sorting files of pre-warning

and others useful to the furtherance

of their own agendas. On a micro scale 

individuals on social media sites

garner followers by intention or default 

some of whom represent the issue of

 tribal hegemony operating as propaganda 

outreach alternately with covertly

assessing the strengths and weaknesses 

of devotion to ideals values and concepts

identifying them as the enemy to be 

handled accordingly as a lesson in due 

caution through unidentified links from

unknown provenance lurking sinister. 

Evolutionary Traits

Curiosity grapples with survival

in the human psyche and although

thousands of years have passed not

much has changed in the endless

search. Once migratory in nature

nomadic tribes sought necessities to

survival. But humankind abhors

boredom always searching for the

odd and the new. Where the wealthy

now roam the world as tourists the

indigent persecuted flee from the

terror imposed upon them by their

unreconstructed tyrants. On one

hand the carefree and seeking. On

the other the impecunious fleeing.

Both in transit living vastly different

lives where never do the twain meet.

 

 

Action, Camera -- Frisson Alert!

Show business, Broadway? Passe. We live

in a bored world and the goal now is to

discover the unique and the sweet piquancy

of dangerous thrills, a pas de deux with

existence to gain that very special titillation

gripping your heart muscle like an iron claw

then releasing your lungs to breathe again

all in good clean fun...you know? Even the

buzz of dope no longer works unaccompanied

with threatening drama. So, off to Mexico

to lie on the beach, obliging dealers in easy 

reach. Let the drama unfold. And it does when

masked intruders to the private beach of the

luxury hotel is invaded by a seaborne swarm

fully armed against a rival gang suddenly

appearing seaward to blast one another with

lethal fire, two succumbing, others hobbling

to getaway car and rubber dinghy  - and wasn't

that a fright, iphones at the ready, social media

sites anxious recipients prepared to crown the

best pics of the season conferring celebrated status

on the winner clutching his victory close.

The world is not as you knew it, Granny.

Flaming Out of Life

They flutter irresistibly toward

the lethal flame that will destroy

them, impervious to the knowledge

that they thus forsake the very

existence that others struggle to

survive overtaken by conflict and

deadly persecution, homelessness

and famine. While there is never

a shortage of dealers selling drugs

or the chemicals to produce them

an equal number of concerned

humanitarians invest in efforts to

save those lives through harm

reduction clinics and lobbying

governments to decriminalize

simple possession. All of which

feed directly toward increased

opportunities and freedom to seek

the deadly substances. Unstoppable

suicides not by design but by default

take steeper numbers of lives addicted

not to living but to dying in a frenzy

of search-and-rescue; the searches

increasingly successful, the rescues

falling by the wayside of impulsion.

 

 

AuschwitzTattoos, Identity-Theft

As eerily sinister objects go

what possible value could there be

in a crude piece of machinery

designed specifically to etch a

numerical tattoo on the arm of a

prisoner at Auschwitz? Those meant

to be used as slave labour who might

and might not survive their ordeal

and those who had no use of the

mis-identification etching directed 

immediately to the gas chambers. Who

might take pride in owning such a

device with its grisly-grim purpose

other than a museum dedicated to 

memorializing the dead and mourning

the genocidal intent of a people

enslaved to a universally shared

legend of sub-human disposability?

Yet in Israel an auctioneer and the

owner of the diabolical identity-thieving

machinery prepared to sell to the

highest bidder, from Jew to Jew

elicit notice of the abominable anomaly

in objectivity, soulless creatures, all!

Her Starring Role

Chronologically mature, one is a 

petulant juvenile born to a royal family

the other is a resentfully manipulative

schemer whose self-adoring ego

instinctively assesses how far she

can soar in her bid for control and its 

fallout succeeding in mortifying and 

nonplussing her moral superiors

shattering a royal dynasty with her 

aggrieved claims of abandonment and 

hurtful superiority to gain the upper hand 

in a game her victims hardly knew they 

were part of until finally stricken to

discover the malice inflicted that destroyed 

peace of mind much less trust and affection

within, post-betrayal while shunning the 

unaccustomed, unsought public eye 

now focused on the triumph of their 

adroit detractor playing the victim and 

parlaying it into talented celebrity.

 

A Tall Tale

We can meekly hypothesize but cannot

in conscience give credence to the

unthinkable of a deliberate unleashing 

of a zoonotic pathogen to destabilize the 

world order, rocket the global economy 

into shattered failure and in the process

see the deaths of five million humans

for this is a diabolic strategy that no

human agency could ever consider

and so no, neither should those who

hold Beijing in grave suspicion that

the CCP has neither scruples nor morals.

See how Beijing reacts at the very hint

of the coronavirus rescinding planned-for

disappearance where all members of 

the world community save one is now

wearied and broken resigned to coping

with a threat that may wane but never die.

China whose gift to the unready world

has been monumental is itself adamant it

will never rest until its monster collapses

shrivels and dies. At least in China.

Obsessive-Compulsive Evangelism

Infused and obsessed with the

sacred mission of salvation

there is no sense of moderation

nor sensitivity to the abrading

of indigenous culture and beliefs

all to be assigned to the grave of

uncivilized superstition a mockery

of holiness where the spirit of the

divine is absent requiring the

anointed to sacrifice their lives to

the burden and obligation of

mission work to offer the sacred

worship of the supreme being to

the heathen masses to correct their

course in life so that in death they

will discover the meaning of life.