Invested in Peace

Modest in physical stature, surely yes

compensated by an eerie presence of 

command and control with the ambition 

to make full use of that steely penetration 

of gaze and utterly immobile face 

retaining its secrets shared only in the 

intimacy of the subconscious orchestrating 

decisions of the conscience. Ah of course 

we know that, it's the Napoleon Complex!

and this man ably demonstrates his

devotion to self and the jackal's agenda

ably moving his chess pieces forever ahead. 

There is that about this man that alerts others 

to his supreme self confidence, confiding 

in none, taking no measure elsewhere but 

from his very own muse. Unloved he is 

yet by those who surround him, admired and

feared. His is the final word beyond any

hint of dispute. Affection denied he courts 

an aura raising trepidation in those who 

would challenge him for he is that rare beast 

for whom resort to murder becomes routine.

So when his soaring legacy ambition takes

shape little wonder he orders his cowering

aides to plan a full-scale invasion bringing

conflict to a continent invested in peace. 

Nature As Playwright

You may think of yourself as unique

the one and only when in fact you are

merely a character actor undistinguished

a straw in a haystack of others as useful

as yourself as a fill-in for a great unfolding

epic entertaining to its creator distinguished

by an unwholesome curiosity in responses

engendered to imposed situations. Observing

the results among the chaff of creation's

staged monumental episodes in an evolving

drama where its principals act on impulse

bypassing  reason for impetuosity in an

atmosphere reflective of base emotions the

chaff themselves become spectators as sinister

events unfold and they reel with disbelief

while their complacent world is eviscerated

to satisfy the whims of dictators, tyrants and

sadists. The while their creator delivers minor

distractions like global viruses to threaten and

extinguish lives, followed by narcissistic 

despots slavering after territorial expansion

relishing the fear and loathing inspired by

a cosmic disruption in life expectancy.

Savagery Prevails

Listen to reason, the defenders are 

advised and all will be well. Untold 

death and destruction can be avoided

the invaders say soothingly as long as 

Ukraine withdraws its military, lays down 

its arms and welcomes the presence of 

Russian troops, Belarusian military 

and the thugs of Chechnya, reasonably

agreeing to surrender all ambitions to

remain sovereign in favour of happily

returning to its former status, a mere and 

memorably historical part of Greater Russia. 

Continued aggression by thwarting the 

intention of Moscow to redeem Ukraine 

from the surly path offensive to Kremlin 

values and those of its valorous leader 

will only beget violent consequences. We 

will expunge from your midst the fascists

and the racists holding court besmirching

tradition. Give us your leaders and we

will bestow upon you a leadership designed

to keep the peace in a comradely pact

with your patron nation whose only goal

is to ensure that Ukraine flourishes.

The Nature of Tyranny

Snow billowing through the atmosphere

in the early morning hours, the wind gusting 

on a cold winter day. Chickadees and squirrels 

roistering on the back fence, a cardinal's bright 

splash of carmine against the monochrome of

white covering the landscape. A picture worth

a thousand words gleaming in my eyes

sending a frisson of pleasure into swinging 

limbs as they tramp forest trails deep in 

newfallen snow on this one of many winter days 

this year. This is the year that a belligerent ruler

rueing past glory, set out to shed blood in a 

violent military assault against a neighbour

whose independent nationhood festers as an

assault upon a tyrant's nefarious plans to

'reunite' its territory with his own. And so

though it is winter there too and the ground laden

with snow even as the sun shines, aerial

sorties and bombing missions interrupt the

pleasures of life for millions under siege by

a psychopath with no care for the deadly impact

his orders to war inflict on the vulnerable.

 

 

Winter of our Content

 

Spring is yet a long way off.

Cold as this winter day has been

-- and it has been -- we heard the

sweet song of goldfinches

and watched as robins flew

around the forest stream's

frigid ice-released waters on

a beautiful afternoon in the 

country to which we were born.

Half a world away there are other

countries we've never seen

though our parents escaped them

when the century was in its infancy

migrating here so we would be

born free from persecution. 

That happenstance choice saved

us from war and deprivation of

our very lives. And so we live in

gratitude and leisure, realizing that

others do not. Why, even this very day

this day that has given us so much pleasure

the country my mother left sent convoys

of aerial peacekeepers to bomb the cities

my father abandoned so many years

previously when life  had abandoned

him. In my leisure time I shake in

dismay and pray for those living in

danger and fear of death's knock in

their winter of miserable discontent. 

Essential Essence of the Spirit

 

You are ... life's eternal gift to me.

My yearning child's soul lost and

weeping in the disconsolation

of lonely time cried out and 

yours from a vast memory vault 

consoled mine so I was no longer 

desolate. An ancient bond as 

fathomless as the depthless seas

as encompassing as the mysteries

of heavenly bodies spinning

through endless time and space.

Two we are in our corporeal

essence, yet one entwined we are. 

 

 

Mars As Diplomat

Why on Earth do we call them politicians

although to be fair, we use that word

disparagingly, yet accede to the ritual

of the polls in the forlorn hope that some

among them will be honourable and public

spirited, not immersed in themselves to the 

exclusion of serving the public weal. They 

are, with rare exceptions, all born thespians

their skills are those of publicists, theatrical

managers, imbued with the spirit of creative 

design to catch public imagination mounting 

the world stage as ambitious autocrats steeped 

in the proud assurance that their appearance

beliefs and actions inspire and elevate the public 

discourse as world-class celebrities whose 

wisdom, judgement and guiding hand spares 

the public domain from spectacular clashes of 

violent disagreement though truth be told not 

entirely averse to mounting wars on a grand scale 

in the conviction their cause is justly unavoidable.

 

Sincerely Yours

What are friends for, after all

if not to gather 'round and sincerely

commiserate over one's ill fortune

seeking to fortify the unfortunate's

morale, muttering and uttering

imprecations and warnings against the

malefactor intent on upsetting the

ethical order of global human rights 

attainment, including those of a

state in reflecting the wholesale

wishes of its people. Unfortunately

empathy and backpats achieve little

in the face of a military stealthily in

advance, like a leonine predator

concealing its intentions until the

final denouement when all the

champions of sovereignty and rights

and justice withdraw in fear of

inclusion by circumstance revealing

their aversion to a conflict that will

sacrifice the future of the victim.

Well, Imagine That!

Of two basic systems of government 

the universal human response in assessing

the favoured of the two is always heavily 

on the side of personal freedoms and respect

for lawful justice which leaves dictatorships 

at the bottom of the garbage heap of politics

democracies soaring to the top unblemished 

by the propensity of tyrants to manipulate 

humanity to their unsavoury ends in a

power structure benefiting only the tyrant. 

Wait: each may have something in common 

after all. Whenever things go wrong as they 

invariably do in any system of government 

the dictators warn of foreign influences 

appealing to the nationalist in even the 

downtrodden. Seems now that democracies 

are not themselves above the convenient

use of the very same ploy in eschewing

responsibility while gathering their voters

in a show of national support when their 

leaders fail, then warn of the implications

of foreign interference. Do they wink at one

another while directing the choreography

of national outrage so useful as a cover for

ineptly outrageous betrayals of democracy

on the one hand and virulent displays of

human rights violations on the other...?

 

Who's There?

In one of her undecided moods today

slightly on the side of sour and foul

but not entirely committed she

chose to unleash all her winter

elements in a bid to see which

would manage to surmount the very

best efforts of the other. And so the

forest was the testing ground first of

more snow to burden its canopy

the sky above dark and angry aided

by a hostile wind determined to

break vulnerable branches under 

the weight of snow and ice. Then the

clouds dissipated in the heated glare 

of the winter sun bringing in a wide

blue sky and clamping it tight over the

landscape. Illuminating the pristine arras

of sparkling white the frozen creek was

released from icy bondage free again

to wind its way to the river. Chickadees

sought the sun emerging from their cedar

shelters just as an owl roused itself to

call its imperious vetting query through 

the silence of the snow-muffled forest

and surely surly nature lost her frown?

The Little Sacrifices

Humanity plunders the Earth ever

so casually as though its greatness

is inanimate and thus cannot defend

itself. Advantaging ourselves with

looting all that grows above and 

relentlessly searching out all that

exists within. And when that great

body upon which we feed strikes back

we retreat in offended astonishment

unprepared to contemplate the source

of our misfortune. As with the endless

digging of wells extracting liquids to

sustain ourselves, the wellheads deep

and offensive to the mantle of Earth.

Just as casually extracting life from

unwary children whose curiosity draws

them too near and when balance fails

gravity steps in and they are no more.

Absolutely

 

Did we not always know

that power corrupts 

and absolute power corrupts

absolutely? The more

accepting a docile public

is of the quirks of its leaders

verging on the cusp of

autocratic entitlement

the closer that public is moved

to the edge of obeisance to

the dictates of a public figure

measured by his manipulation

of a citizenry vulnerable to

acceptance of being led

by dictate. A leader awaiting

the arrival of emergencies

to better enable him to 'take charge'

to reach beyond the powers

resting in his office in favour

of grasping at emergency powers

enabling him to react by the virtue

of over-reacting in a dominant

display of contempt for those

who placed him by the ballot

in a space, a place and a time.

 

 

Fearsome Mankind

Fearsome mankind

caught a tiger by its tail.

The alpha predator 

known for its prowess

in stalking wildlife

setting out traps and enticing

lesser animals of greater

size and strength to take

a leap of faith that the bait

set out to whet its appetite

will not spell its end. A

trophy of wit over nature's

will to survive. Until nature

set out a trap of her own

and humanity is the bait

where an invisible threat

marauds at will to invade

that bait where it flourishes

and replicates and goes on to

hunt again and again. In the

risible language of humanity

the infected 'caught' the virus

where in reality the virus

caught its victims unaware.

 

 

Halt: Who Goes There?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humanity has never understood the

indifference of its creator. Even a Jew

whom belief had it was gifted with a

heavenly spirit was moved to plead:

My god, why has thou forsaken me? Just

as his descendants asked in bewilderment

during the blast furnace immolating them 

during their long night of mass destruction. 

So why might a creator destroy its creations? 

There is no question that Nature is indifferent 

and in her random experiments blind and deaf

to the pleas of those caught in the web of

integrated lifeforms' predations. Reason

is a special gift endowed upon humanity

and Nature has no need of it for what

she designs she leaves to its own devices.

To Nature all is as it develops, there is no

good and there is no evil. Should her

creatures turn on one another; of their

own ilk or on other creatures Nature has

devised is of no matter to their creator.

Who has unleashed upon the world a

wickedly proficient and sinister beast

to harvest the infirm and the elderly as it

relishes the opportunity to multiply on

its course to dominate the world of man.

Love Letter

 

 Beloved you are the air I breathe.

The beat of my heart through endless

time. The very essence of life you are.

You are the breeze soughing gently

though trees, the fragrance of flowers

the very spirit of all that promises

good in creation. Your mind nourishes

mine, your luminous thoughts

take seat within mine. Your smile

radiates and reverberates love just

as your every caress captures the

serenity of peace through the silken

gossamer threads that bind us. My very

existence derives meaning from yours.

 

You Are

 

In a close-lived, closed-loop system

of dispassionate utilitarian companionship

it's difficult to discern which has primary

and ultimate command of the other. It is a 

co-dependency of the first order. And then 

there is the sub-lieutenant of the engine of 

life; what would the brain be after all, without 

the heart? Where the mind enters the equation 

remains a mystery. What can be assured is that 

without the fundamental assistance of the 

centre of thought and awareness, movement 

and of course emotion, there is no existence. So

the entire enterprise of codependency and

reliability of function represents an exquisite

framework designed to enable life itself. You 

may pride yourself on control of function

stand out as the visible and obvious result

of co-efficiency in an integrated whole whose

function has created an independent, autonomous

being, yet never forget it is the core nucleus

of those organs' intact usefulness that reign.

 

 

Puzzles Within Perplexing Conundrums

There is none so cynical and yet so

impressionably gullible than a voting

population prepared against all previous

experience to believe in the promises a

politician proffers as answers to the

questions that bedevil an electorate. A

previous executive office holder may have

governed wisely and well but he has become

stale and predictable leading the fickle

electors to search for a replacement to

carry on his good works and in the process

be charismatic and personable, a point of

pride on the world stage. And so the transition.

Following which arrives the dismantling

of all the predecessor government achieved

but carried out with glossy promises and 

smiles reflecting 'sunny ways'. Where the

stale governor of the nation had been a man

of great probity his replacement's casual

regard for ethics and truth take central stage.

Still a charming persona and protestations

of innocence of deceit carry the day. Until

one day the assaulted sensibilities of the

people descend to the dungeon of disappointed

rage and a revolt brews, insurrectionists

march in unstoppable convoys claiming their

rights and prepared to guillotine their choice

who has exiled himself to a safe haven as he

preens and postulates this too shall pass.

Advice to the Perplexed

 

If you've developed a cautionary yet

sensible awareness or were born with

a sixth sense of the presence of predators

good for you, and if not it's never too late

to start. Start with the Internet, a marvel

of modern technology in communication

availing people of the opportunity to meet 

and greet at vast distances both of geography

and personality and nuances between. 

There on platforms geared to bring disparate 

peoples together will many friendships at 

a distance be forged to add quality to lives 

for we are gregarious creatures nurtured 

by the presence of others like ourselves. 

It is the furtive, disguised sociopaths and 

psychopaths one must be attuned to tuning 

out for they lurk here and there in an endless 

occasionally rewarding search for their next 

victim. If you are at all charitably inclined

 that instinct will be drawn upon by those 

skilled in extracting monies from the unaware. 

If you live in a country with generous social 

welfare programs where immigration is 

loose and fast be prepared for calls upon 

your shared humanity. If you are suddenly 

befriended by a stranger whose inclination 

is to no longer be a stranger be on guard if 

he follows promiscuously yet has few followers. 

If he follows strictly women only know that 

you are a target, decline and avoid an SOS.

A courtesy message from a well-wisher.

The People Speak

The arrogant who attain power

viewing it as an opportunity to enact

laws suitable to their narrow vision

of societal refashioning to reflect

their approach to building a society

reflecting their mind's eye of power

underestimate the collective wisdom

of the electorate succumbing to false

promise electing and re-electing the

paragon of virtue become a tyrant now

realizing they have no love of him

nor of his gratuitous insults to their

intelligence through his lack of integrity

and penchant for bypassing law and order

unsuitable to his personal agenda. Finally

understanding the depth of their ruler's

corruption matched by his contempt for

them, they revolt, demanding the fall of

government and a replacement that has

full sympathy to their needs to heal a 

country left adrift in its quarrelsome parts 

shattering its wholeness. He must go! 

the mantra reverberates. The master of 

the state of its military and courts of 

justice sneers, turning his back.

Comfortless Power

 

Comfortless Power

The forest has been embraced

in a thick white comforter

of snow, a sight to behold, soon

followed by raging bellows of

blasting wind hurtling daggers

of ice-pelleted curtains across

the suddenly transformed landscape

from gentle beauty to raging 

fury. In the city traffic is

stock-still in the shock of

immobility, the roads a thick,

slick menace of ice. City residents

huddle in misery by candlelight

as their homes become unheated

caverns of despair. Frantic civic

efforts to defray winter's sullenly

morose excess pits frail human

ingenuity against pitiless nature,

casually reintroducing her creatures

to the reality of imperial puissance.

 

 

Cretins Internationale

 

Though I pride myself in residing in

neither camp, I do realize the vast gulf

in apprehension between a nitwit and a

half-wit.  The former has all the grey matter

required for superior mental gymnastics

yet misses the mark, whereas the latter

will forever dwell in the grim netherworld

of surface conclusions trumping the

nuances of critical awareness simply

because of skimpy genetic endowment.

I was in the appropriate line on the

factory floor and I still cannot fathom

the chasm yawning between the cerebrally

disadvantaged and the stellar synaptic off

target.  Deeply pondering the aggregate.

 

 

Gone

 

Though they shouldn't because they 

describe the natural order of events

some matters still take you by surprise

but then this is something you would never 

be prepared for. You washed her collar

and her halter, the renewed license tag

hanging forlornly. She did not even

have the opportunity to live into that

renewed year's license and the date

looks out at you every time you pass it.

You see her everywhere glancing out of

the corner of your eyes, her shadowy

form slipping from room to room

in the house, gone before you can call

her to you. There are her toys, her winter

coat and tiny boots. You cannot bear 

to part with them. You do have control 

over certain things, those she breathed 

life into that remain in your possession. 

As for her, life frayed then expired

much too soon, even though she had

lived long past the years allotted by

cavalier nature. You loved her, nurtured

her, depended on her presence: gone.

Frosted Winter Landscape

Atmospheric conditions have

beaten the sky to a silver-white

froth of clouds that vigorous

winds prepare to upend

spilling the white in a cascade

of snow flurries over the waiting

landscape, leaving the silver intact. 

The forest's creek welcomes a

fresh plush coverlet over the

thick blanket already covering

its icy surface in the frigid air of

a winter afternoon. Birdsong there

is none, nor frantic scrabbling of

furred forest creatures all huddled

in their lairs on this frosted day.

The series of bridges thoughtfully

fording the creek in its switchbacks

stand as testament to the fate of

the forest trees, hunched with the

burden of a winter's snowpack

the forest canopy a lacework of 

white-ladled branches, the forest

floor an undulation of white.

 

 

Tormenting Humanity

If the horn-wearing red-tinted sadist 

with the rakish tail was looking for a

diversion from his usual pursuits of

inflammatory trident-pronging of

unsavoury souls descending to his

dominion of Purgatory and thought to

begin expanding his franchise he could

not possibly have devised a more 

clever scheme than approaching

unaware humanity in the guise of a

virus, spinning off countless copies

of himself and sending them all off

to occupy space in humanity's inner

organs as a lesson in diabolical means

to ending life long before the occupants

harboured any intention of leaving.

Creation, Time and Space

 

Creation, Time and Space

An imposing cathedral of
unparalleled beauty sheathed in
crystalline grandeur lifts its
imperious grace to the ceiling
of the sky velvet with approaching
night, a halo of moon and the
boldness of stars impassively
observing a landscape unlike
their own of frozen gases and
ancient minerals. The one below
with its living atmosphere
responds to the distance of its
sponsor-sun in a frigid pause
of the clamour of growing
things unlike the inert nothingness
of cold and distant space. This
most familiar place of time and
seasons, liveliness and curiosity
a highly specialized experiment
by nature in randomized creative
adventure. And so, her creations
look up and peer beyond the
darkness of the unknown, certain
of discovery and revelation.

The Celestial Infinity

 

Celestial phenomena
transcending timebound usefulness;
orreries, geared planetaria
astrolabes
equinoctial sundials
celestial globes
past astronomies


 

Monumental sphere
Hemispheres
Constellations;
ecliptic, equator lines
Globe's north pole
Polar axis
Constellation Hydra.

Stellar symbols
centre of gravity
inadvertent susceptibility
permutations
stellar mutants
spherical trigonometry
"Star Finder"

* (note)

Polar calattes, spherical zones
stellar magnitudes.
Horizon and median rings
skeletal hemisphere
stellar magnitudes
armillary sphere
navigating brilliant twilight;
star plotting.

Post Copernican celestial globes
geocentric universe
astrograph, harmonic drive mount
harmony of the spheres
ascension, declination
geocentric system.

God's design or Nature's
siderius nuncius
theoretical concepts
venerable techniques
heterogeneous history
Galileo moment!

* photographs: Sudbury geologist Wilf Meyer

 

It Is What It Is

Singular individuals with the spotlight

of celebrity using their voice to decry the 

human rights abuses targeting their people 

have an especial obligation of sensitivity 

to the suffering of others whose groups were 

exposed to a relentless campaign of hatred 

in the understanding that colour alone does

not engender the passion of enmity to

motivate human extermination to satisfy

the bloodlust of totalitarians. The elements 

of a scheme to eradicate a group's humanity 

to enable acceptance by a wider public of a 

human pestilence among them awaiting 

obliteration can be visited upon those perceived 

as threats to domination calling upon a deeply

subconscious hatred of such visceral enmity 

bred of inexplicable rage that nothing but 

mass murder will suffice to placate the monster 

within. Have a care then in the utterance of 

assured statements that designate the Holocaust 

as a mere disagreement between the powerful 

and their prey exemplifying the evil humanity 

carries in its collective soul yet not quite

demonstrative of unspeakable racial genocide.

The Early Season

 

 

The sky a brooding bowl of
whipped cream slopping frostily
over the landscape newly
preparing itself for the season.

Limning shrubs, tree branches
with an exquisitely delicate
etching of snow blooming
in the gloom of another
onset of urgent winter.

A lacy tapestry of puffed fluff
weighting branches, laid over
trails, muting sound though
there are no birds anywhere.

They are suddenly absent,
the forest a hushed
huddling of small, furred creatures
seeking winter refuge.