Hallelujah Chorus

Hallelujah Chorus 

Who might have imagined that this
was even achievable? Finally, I have
risen to the distinction of status, really I
have! Like a personage of royal descent
I have a distinctive aristocratic retinue
that dogs my every footstep, slavishly
currying my favour, unctuously declaring
their devotion lest I overlook their
devoutly dedicated presence. In the interests
of full disclosure I must admit I am
without title. On the other hand, my
admirers are entitled to be viewed as
representatives of the highest order of
their breed, duly registered as such
though their humility in the fact of
that distinction does them due credit.
Their reliance on my good graces simply
reflects their recognition that this
human they have generously deigned to
adopt represents the fount of all they consume
with rapacious gusto guiding them to
aim their regal steps in the wake of my
own plebeian strides into their very most
favourite chamber of the palace we
graciously share where food is prepared.

 

Operation Bnei Brak

Jews speak with quiet sober grief

of their intimate knowledge of the

harrowing agony of genocide. They

know and they remember and they

will never abandon that memory to

the passage of time. When others face

terrible tragedy in natural disasters or

fallout of conflict the nation of Jews

responds in an empathetic force that

is both emotional and practical to

give aid and assist the beleaguered

and threatened to surmount and to

persevere in escape from assault and

death. When the Jewish national home

faces threats and deadly assaults from

an Arab neighbour furious at the very

presence of Jews in their natural home

violent attacks become the stuff of

jubilation when Jews are slaughtered

on the part of what the outside world is

pleased to identify as partners in peace.

Denying COVID

How strange it is. The country

that so generously shared with the

world a viral pathogen that has 

caused the death of millions of

vulnerable people globally, quick

to shout out 'racist' when the

international community sought to

contain its influence by shutting out

the potential for spread and then

complacently looked out as the world

struggled to contain its deadly impact

while China's control seemed absolute

has suddenly become the centre of

infection, its vaccines' inferior impact

failing to stem infectiousness. While 

the world at large resignedly opens

reasoning no option remains but to

accept the pathogen's presence and 

resort to institutionalizing avoidance

practices, Beijing which had profited

while the globe suffered economic loss

now slams the door to Shanghai, its

financial powerhouse, refusing to allow

a mere virus to dictate to dictators.

Learning: To Live With It

 

Mental health issues now present in epic 

proportions. Once, night was the venue of 

repressed fears sublimated, erupting through 

the sleeping conscious in nightmares of fear 

and loss and danger. Those nightmare visions 

have surfaced unrelentingly now throughout 

our waking hours and we react to the fear and 

the terror and the sheer never-ending onslaughts 

in confusion that addles our emotions stifling

hope in the primal need to survive. Nature's 

calamities, episodic and dramatic stun us

and we struggle with the advice to learn

to live with it. As though humanity has not

always learned to live with it. Despite which

brave hearts convinced themselves that

rescue from uncertainty was nigh forgetting

momentarily in survival anxiety that the

sinister evil that threatens is that posed by

intransigent humanity itself, endlessly

provoking conflict at the behest of cunning

psychopaths elevated to power by mute assent.

No Repentance, No Reform, No Penalty

Bashir ordered the Janjaweed, Arab herdsmen

to run down Sudan's black Darfurian farmers

as entire families desperate to escape were

shot down by helicopter gunships

in mass killing before the cover of 

forest gave them haven. And the world

looked on. The International Criminal

Court sat in judgement but their verdict

meant nothing to the Arab nations that

welcomed his presence as one of their own.

Bashar would accept no pleas for equality

meting out punishment for complaints

in a sectarian-driven mass massacre

delivered via chemical weapons, aerial

artillery and barrel bombs stifling dissent

as Syrian Sunnis fled in their millions to

populate Europe as refugees. Bashir and

Assad together annihilated a million lives.

Now the Arab League prepares to invite him

back to the fold. The savagely barbaric

tactics Putin's planes exacted in Syrian lives 

replayed now in Ukraine where once and again 

hospitals and schools are bombed and civil

life destroyed, where mass graves receive the

dead, instructing psychopaths taking note that

the assaults against humanity come with no

costs. The "Never Again!" phrase as devoid of

meaning as the intentions of base humanity.

 

 

Naughty and Nice

 

She is young and vivacious
though as a mother of two
young adults, not that young
in fact. Yet so much in life
is so obviously relative and to
the grey-haired woman beside
her, the pretty, charming
woman was young and
gregariously extroverted,
so much so that their brief
companionable proximity
serendipitously served in
its warmth to gift the elderly
woman with the sweet illusion
of herself, renewed in youth.
Fittingly, or not, the younger
woman wore casual exercise
pants and as the two ambled
side by side in the woods, the
legend, coyly, perkily appearing
on her derriere read, "Naughty".
Delighting her companion no end