Kim, You Say?

When the Bad Boys of the Earth are born with the 

double gifts of egomaniacal psychopathy there is a sigh 

of relief from the elevated quarters of the dynastical

power-avaricious of the world. Those qualities invested in 

ordinary mortals signal social alarm in anticipation of 

the evil they are equipped to foster in their communities

alerting authorities to vigilance for security purposes.

Yet the world looks on bemused and withdrawn from

prospects of upheavals on a scale to challenge those

of Mother Earth herself when such viperous men

reach their ruling inheritance and cast aside the toys

they used in favour of the heightened-level playthings

available to world leaders of any stripe. The Bad Boy

in Pyongyang craves attention of fear and apprehension

gone elsewhere of late, so resolves to shock and awe

the oblivious with newer threats of a nuclear winter

and suddenly all eyes swivel back to the world's premier

Bad Boy clamouring to join the pantheon of Bad Men.

Gaming Biology

 

 It's a man's game. Whatever the game. Was a time 

women could not compete because they were, after all

women. So they took athletic competition to a new 

direction and started their own leagues, excelling and 

surpassing expectations; not theirs, men's. Winning 

plaudits and exuding pride women practised and made

perfect their skills. And then along came some men 

who decided they were, after all, women who expected 

to play in women's leagues, male hormones be damned. 

Soon the game transwomen joined once again closed ranks. 

Women must know their place and though games belong 

to males, women own their bodies except when ranked 

male players borrow that too in a custom known as rape. 

The world is made for men permitting women their defined 

role with men declaring that they own all the games. 

Male clergy make divine rules forbidding women to shed 

pregnancy for though theirs are the bodies the tenants they 

may unwillingly carry not theirs to dispose of, but men's.

The Eye of a Needle

The highway to heaven is a busy intersection 

staffed in part by legendarily skilled purveyors 

of delusions who experience no difficulty whatever 

filling their mission's pews with ardent believers 

passionate in spiritual devotion prone to impulsively

transferring veneration from the heavenly throne 

to its disciples on Earth. Those whose tradecraft 

assumes proportional resemblance to the scammers 

and grifters whose trade make life so interesting 

for the vulnerable and gullible within human society. 

It is when the intersection of volubly messianic masses

move the faithful to surrender their worldly goods 

to the gospel's charlatans enabling their penchant for 

excessively lavish lifestyles thus attracting the notice 

of their street counterparts who respond by brazen 

daylight robbery in the very sanctity of that holy

place that the heavens roil with derision as the pastor's

sermon is interrupted and justice is done relieving

the gaudily jewellery-encrusted preacher of the

exhausting burden of wearing ungodly ornaments.

Self-Abnegation On High

 

A sense of certainty, impetuosity and impatience

are traits of the young and the confident who

know the answers before questions are asked. It

is not they who are assigned to positions of 

public trust but the venerated elderly who have

left those traits behind and assumed those of

patience and empathy through long familiarity

with life and the minds of men. Not to condemn

but to listen and advise. Where the young see no

reason ever to excuse their excesses the elderly

sigh and beg pardon of those they have offended.

Little wonder that eyes turned to the presence of

a primate whose position in the orders of religious

devotion is that of the ultimate authority. Little 

wonder he assumed the role of great conciliator

bringing his elderly, ailing presence to an audience

demanding his attention so he could humbly beg

their forgiveness, not for a sin he committed but

one that human nature and the history of humanity

have a penchant for committing time and time again.

Irenic Russia

What's that you ask in your naive incredulity...

How low can any human agency descend in 

besmirching themselves with sanctimony of an 

absent conscience? Well then, consider the source.

That of an arrogant irredentist state historically 

imposing itself on its neighbours in a hegemonic 

parody of leadership, brazenly invading another 

with transparent triumphalism claiming intention 

to liberate it from the talons of fascism. Then its 

indignation at the invaded state's courage in defiance 

and self defence instead of cringingly submitting 

to the inevitable. And in its defensive reaction the

attacked state mounts a successful counter-offensive 

trading lives lost for lives taken. And for this infraction 

of expectations the snarling transgressor turns to 

the world body of peaceful coexistence with intention

of charging its uncompliant victim with war crimes. 

To Know Ourselves

What a marvel is the 21st Century

in its miraculous communication modes

ensuring that no one truly must be 

isolated though they may inhabit a

remote island of their own. Live, real-time

chats seamlessly conducted as fingers

fly over a keyboard or words breathed

into a receiver. Through design and

innovation thousands of miles of

geography have drawn close, the world

become a chummy place even as

alienated conflict arises, onlookers

gawping to their hearts' content. Advice

to accompany compassion for a

stranger suddenly an intimate

irrespective of distance. Estrangement

binds minds in a spirited dance of

communion. We need never again

emerge from the sweet haven of home

to experience the pleasure of leisure

in exotic parts. A few keyboard strokes

suffice to order goods and services. We

extend our hands by proxy and welcome

friends so latterly strangers. Roam the

Ethernet for world news, entertain by

gaming our bored minds. Which may, in

due course, become all that is left of our 

modern corporeal essence come the future.

 

 

 

Epitaph

 

Life ... the paramount gift of being. An

incandescent flame burning brightly until

the vagaries of time snuffs the embers.

That supreme measure of timed existence

imbues us with sensory perception in

our evolution from child to maturity in

a span of time that arouses our senses

as we see the world, hear its sounds, feel

its substance, search for meaning and 

companionship. Ours the opportunity

to achieve mastery over our ambitions

in the free agency of our minds opening

to the mysteries and wonders surrounding

us. Curiosity to be satisfied, emotions to

be satiated with the comfort of love and

belonging. An intellgence of the higher

order alternately surrendering to lower order 

emotions inscribes the tablet of our surrender 

of life unwritten between the story of how 

we lived accompanying us beyond the barrier

between incipient life and its final completion 

where fulfillment is a mystery known only to 

the departed. And in death no one speaks.

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.

 

 

Dominion of Restraint

 

The influence of small towns on the

character and behaviour of its residents

is a matter of historical nostalgia, places

where, as villages gathering farmers and

craftspeople together in a common area

where all were known to one another

resulted in a community of personalities

where the perennial divisive crank was

identified along with the meek mild

tempered man living with the harridan

and the local professionals in law and

medicine and church represented the

refined gentry, mercantile interests held

by those of exotic backgrounds and any

whiffs of impropriety sniffed out by

those with arcane talents from whom

nothing could be hidden. Proliferating

by word of mouth and a movable press

naming, blaming and shaming might

convince all and sundry to improve mode

of conduct lest local law enforcement be

moved to custodianship. That world of 

tight community surrendered to a world

where the population pool is immense

no longer confined to towns and villages 

of yore, where scandals and anti-social 

events of psychotic dimension continually 

flavour the news. The intimacy of belonging 

evaporated, the flamboyant flaunting of

celebrity absent moral boundaries reigns.

 

 

Inspired Language

The muse of literacy is not amused.

She is in fact beyond the state of bemused

quite beside herself in the face of the

unaware unwillingness of those who

embark upon that most common of shared

human expressions to exert themselves

not fastidiously, but deliberately and

with all due courtesy to language, use

the words meant to convey their thoughts

and use them accurately, inclusive of the

specific order of the alphabet that identifies

those words, for the elegance of language

and communication demands no less.

I know all this and so would you if you

but heeded her rules through the simple

expedient of respect and admiration for

all that language allows. That which has

the effect of demeaning language in turn

identifies the abuser as one unworthy of

the gift of communication. A visual blight

and an assault on one's sensibilities when

a blissfully unaware mangler of prose

poses as one whose opinions are fraught

with meaning and substance, all flown off

in an embarrassment of sad association.

 

 

 

Offending Humanity

They have much to discuss between them the despots 

of the world who plot how they can manage to desecrate 

the quaint concept of human rights though they are 

members of the world community that pledges to uphold

human rights of all equally and to do all in their collective 

power to avoid bringing the world to another brink 

of global calamity. It is their goal to deflect attention 

though their destructive actions can hardly evade notice. 

They agree not to intrude on one another's territorial 

claims and to be of use one to the other refusing 

in the great hall of the UN General Assembly to 

condemn any among them who succeed in drawing

the alarmed condemnation of peaceful states using 

sanctions as a cudgel to effect economic pain on the 

offender as a means of persuasion in the path toward 

observing international rules of accepted conduct which 

in short refers to avoidance of persecuting minorities

threatening opposition, egregious corruption, imprisonment 

of critics, liberal use of the death penalty, oppressing 

their citizens, violating neighbours' sovereign borders 

to dismantle their governments while destroying civil

infrastructure, bombing schools and hospitals, engaging

in mass murder and generally offending humanity.

The Passion of Wild Wind-Bursts

 

The violent bursts of angry wind split

and struck down the glory of the forest.

Leaving giant old poplars, pines and spruce

splintered, torn asunder, thundering down

on the forest floor, the transition from life

to death as sudden as the micro bursts of

hurricane-force winds raging through the

dark atmosphere striking down one hapless

giant following another, sending creatures of

the forest into a frenzy of panicked flight

from the powerful threat that so disastrously

struck their nests and dens leaving sodden

havoc in its wake. Just as suddenly as the

attack began, it dwindled into nothing and

nothing was left quite intact in the shattered

forest with a will to rebuild itself to stand once

again tall and proud as saplings soon sprang up

in defiance and cardinals trilled their delight.

 

 

Universality Does Not Compute

In a wealthy, first-world Democracy pride is taken 

in the social welfare safety net whereby those who 

struggle to live with the barest minimum of necessities 

and yet cannot, can depend on the gracious wisdom of 

empathetic governing bodies supported by general taxation 

to give aid and comfort through a monthly stipend so 

the indigent can manage to feed themselves and their 

children. In such countries the divide between wealth 

and poverty is stark and wide. In such countries the fortunate

are advised by wealth managers and daily newspaper 

financial sections post examples. As for instance

a couple contemplating retirement concerned with 

the need to make certain no economic pain awaits them 

in the expectation of income reduced from their current

$10,000 monthly income so their lifestyle will not be 

disrupted. Details reveal an independent adult child 

with disabilities whom they occasionally gift with top-ups 

to the government disability cheque. And one wonders 

when is parental obligations to one's own discharged and 

no longer a concern other than that of the taxpayer? 

Haven't We?

 

Our social history is one of
imperial colonialism lording it
over less socially, economically
advanced cultures, even cultures
of ancient heritage that the hubris
of ours found wanting, and now,
those times are less hallowed, the
spirit of domination and oppression
that zeitgeist acknowledged
with the penance of shame as
we humbly teach ourselves
the virtues of tolerance and
respectful understanding, to make
amends so we may like ourselves,
spurning our past. Now we are
tolerant of those who in history
felt somewhat as we did,
sublimely entitled to crude
and bloody conquest in a
surging scimitar-led campaign
to forcibly enlist those not of the
faith to surrender ignominiously
and penitently to Islam. Now, we
fatuously empathize with their
campaigns of murderous raging
jihad murmuring sympathetically
past one atrocity after another,
that we have, after all, offended
their theistic sensibilities.

 

 

What Holocaust?!!

 

Wonder of wonders, miracles upon miracles

who might have imagined the day would come 

when instant global communication was possible? 

The ancient sages said that once people knew one 

another through direct communication they would 

recognize themselves in others so suspicion and strife 

would disappear, we would live in communion with 

one another, an end to persecution, violence and 

global conflict. And then it happened and social media 

was born upon the open communication highways 

strumming across continents and now we know one 

another. We know who thinks as we do and feels as we do 

and commits to beliefs as we do and in them we find

the solace of companionship and union of belief.

Social media enables those certain the Holocaust is 

a pernicious Jewish plot to gain world sympathy

for it never happened and the accursed Jews still live 

to bedevil the world. Consensus has it and UNESCO 

has divulged that 80% of Holocaust denial is of 

German origin and of course if anyone would know 

the truth that Germany has been falsely held 

responsible for something that simply did not

occur, those German denialists should know.

A Library of Thought

 

It is so pleasurable, the exhilarating

glow we two share, yours well-earned

and mine reactive in response to your

gift to me, a book whose heft in my

hand exudes a promise of the exotic

meandering my way, the elegant prose

taking me to another world which I can

share with you as you do with me when

our reading takes us on diverse paths

whose revelations tease us to invite the

other to disclose newly-engaged interests.

What other gift could conceivably match

that of a book with its inherent air of

mystery and discovery, the opportunity

to read unmatched passages scripted by

those driven to share what they know

what they've seen, what they have

searched for and found to elevate their

souls, and in turn ours. What other gift

has the capacity to whisper to us of

worlds scarcely imagined yet offered 

in an irresistible volume giving of itself, 

the promise of reward delivered through 

a library of thought and substance.

 

 

Eerily Ominous

 

 Wiley, sly, coy -- they've been all of that

and more in a facade whose inner core of

sinister intent, threatening aggression and plans

for a near-future global dominance the world

has willfully ignored hypothesizing that these

are intelligent people though obnoxiously

militant whose fundamental humanity acts as

a deterrent against ever actually deploying

nuclear devices for more than rhetoric for surely

knowing the world's response would leave their

own territory a smouldering ruin speaks rational

judgement beyond which none would venture.

And that is precisely why the theocratic regime

confident in their intrinsic belief in the sacred

have courted the profane. None but they believe

the sudden appearance of a saviour to lift the

faithful to Paradise would result from the dark

skeletal silence of a world destroyed, their goal

merely to hasten the presence and the passion of

the Hidden Mahdi whence darkness turns to light.

Can You See It?

 

History is like a battle-hardened veteran

of conflict grown soft with age foregoing

previous alarms over the horrendous cost of

human lives surrendered to the aspirations

of dominating power and in its dotage recalls

glories of the battlefield becoming a faint voice 

alerting of the necessity of wars bemoaning 

their cost. Nothing is ever simple when it is

complex: History grins sardonically viewing

adversarial conflicts of the present reflecting

those of the past while auguring repetition in the

future. For history recalls two dictatorships of

genocidal intent and execution. One butchered

the Jews of Europe, the other dissenters to its

ideology. Now the latter focuses on cultural

genocide and scorched-earth destruction paid

handsomely for by the descendant nation that

once led an axis then marched its military into

the maw of a snarling nation that would not be

defeated and left the Third Reich smouldering 

in its ruins to the present where their roles are

reversed in a never-ending pantomime of war.

Separating Opportunists From Psychopaths

In the early stages there is the jostling and the

manipulation, the peer-to-peer challenges when

the venue of choice is the sportsfield, then the

fraternity and the opportunity to exert a different

type of power through exclusivity, blackballing

those who fail to meet the criterion of exceptional.

Narcissism, a trait associated with inner focus

can be shared equally among mere opportunists

viewing themselves as leadership-quality candidates

for high office. The power to control, to manipulate

equally attractive to the social deviants viewing

others through a sinister dark lens of disdain. At

the height of political achievement accomplished

political leaders of developed economies vie to

outdo one another even as some among them nurse

bitter grievances linked to territorial imperatives. It

becomes reality that at the pinnacle of power added

to widely-sought resources an irenic nation led by a

psychopath trades in threats and grudges, coldly

calculating no power can stand between his goals

achieved by plunder, destruction and mass murder

given his possession of bountiful energy resources

backstopped by reasonable fears of provoking in

the monster a rage so fierce nuclear conflict looms.

 

God of War

 

He rampaged bloodily through the

pantheon of Roman antiquity,

Mars bellicose and triumphant,

leading the ever irenic battalions of

Rome's fearsome military might,

their phalanxes, their helmeted,

breast-plated, shielded centurions

and their raging chariots and swords

to lay waste to all those nations

defiant unto death against the might

of Rome. How could they possibly

know of a distant planet that 

served the Universe by experiment

through incomprehensible orders

of magnitude far surpassing in time

the era of our own ancient mould -

Mars unleashed a nuclear storm 

of absolute annihilation, destroying

all life in its dread demonstration

of the very nature of intelligence

coursing through an advanced

civilization ...  An eternal memory?

 

 

A Light Unto The World

The difference between two antagonists, one unwilling 

in the role the other pursuing the goal of conflict 

is as vast as brilliant light and sinister darkness. Israel

seeking peace does so as a 'light unto the world' whose 

descendants distinguish themselves through heights of 

artistic and scientific accomplishment. As opposed to

Arab Palestinians denying Jewish indigenous status 

in preference to presenting as a 'blight unto the world'

distinguishing themselves in the commission of violence 

and bloodshed and efforts to outperform Goebbels in 

grievous slander designed to convince the broader 

world community the tragedy represented by the failure 

of the Holocaust. The true historical Palestine of Judean 

heritage left a legacy of commitment to eternal survival

contrasted with Palestinian Arab terrorists celebrating 

their commitment to death; theirs and those of Jews.

 

 

The Jewish Enigma

Such are the irrational vagaries of human nature.

Where some among the total prefer to pursue

lives of gratitude for opportunities to enjoy

the premise of a life well lived as one that

respects others' entitlement to that same pursuit.

The antithesis of which are others disgruntled

with all that life promises at the cost of effort

and a balanced mind willing to share the goods

of the earth with others. The perplexity of this

choice dangling before humanity and its outcome

is that Jews among whose roster the world's

great minds fostered advances in every sphere

of human life from art to physics remain the

perennial outcasts, a people denied equality among

others, ordained to be forever held in contempt

while the opponents of a Judean state renewed

seeing themselves entitled to inherit what is not

theirs from the authentic indigenous of an ancient

revered land succumb to the primitive urge to

pillage, murder and destroy in a savage display

of inherited enmity within which the outer world

finds perverted nobility in the endless repetition

of a narrative of victimhood, aspirations denied.

NONE IS TOO MANY

Is it a life well-lived if ambition and fortune 

gained you the role of leader of a wartime nation 

at one with other leaders of free democracies 

against the forces of fascism striving to dominate 

the world order? Where in the course of your role 

as a nation's premier you mingled with royalty

aristocracy the power brokers of global corporations 

enterprises steeped in the profits of munitions

and the people of the country whose affairs you

administered trusted your judgement. Seated at

the pinnacle of power, reaching decisions that

could bring glory or conversely obloquy you

achieved the former in your time and the latter

when history was written for your decision to 

consign to certain death masses of humanity for

whom an evil regime blueprinted mechanisms

of genocide. Faced with the choice of rescuing a

desperate shipload of escapees your response a 

classic in inhumane negation: NONE IS TOO MANY.

Your word as final as the fascist solution to destroy

any vestiges of Jewish life and history. The restless

souls of the countless dead the legacy you chose. 

Message, ergo Medium

 

The dictatorial mind is unfathomable
to the ordinary mind which cannot
quite fathom how it is that anyone
might have been given such implacably
extraordinary powers over others in
the supreme knowledge that in the
imperturbable mind residing in the
skull of the tyrant, he can do nothing
wrong, for he is infallible. Conscience
is a dire failing, a stumble-stone upon
which lesser mortals fall, but not he.
His word is final, his action beyond
the morals that mere mortals are
hindered by, but not he. His supreme
indifference to the harm that others
suffer through his odious decrees and the
actions that follow are simply trifles
not to be dwelt upon, the price to be
paid by others subservient to the great
cause that he represents: his maintenance
of power through repression, threat and
fear. And when that fails to address ugly
uprisings, why there is always mass
slaughter to hammer the message home.

 

 

Describing Herself

Voice beyond peeved
as she tells me how
fed up she is
with her best friend,
always bemoaning her lot,
finding little to
her liking in life,
grumbling miserably
about everything, forever
in the blackest of moods,
never appreciating what
anyone does for her,
caution tells me not to
interrupt and confess
how familiar it all sounds
as though this is
herself describing herself.

 

 

Astronomica

 

.
NASA/JPL

Newtonian celestial mechanics
Transit of Venus
apparition of Halley's Comet
parallactic methodology
refining the astronomical unit.

Telescopic astronomy
honouring, celebrating Galileo.
Lunar, Jovian observations.
Astrophysics, planetary astronomy;
astrobiology, instrumentation;
guide and mentor.

Evolutionary astronomy
marking, remarking the solar system.
Domain of organic life.
Visual, observational astronomers
craft of celestial surveillance.
 

From "life on other worlds"
to Hawking's radiation.
Sun and stars moving in orbit.

We, the centre of the
Stellar universe.

 

 

A New Era Dawns

The febrile pathology of creeping  progressiveness 

has pervaded society in a grand sweep while sane people 

were complacent in their belief that the greater public 

is in good hands at the discretion of learned justices 

whose credentials in administering justice are beyond 

reproach. While reason slept peacefully alongside

intelligence, a gradual tidal congress of consciousness 

tinged, then flooded with a studied belief in gentle 

invitation to transgressors in society to return from

 their punishing exile for surely their victims in the 

goodness of their souls would proffer forgiveness on the 

assumption that their pain and grief is of little value 

in the balance against humane treatment for the wicked.

And so the Supreme Court sees fit to rule that a life 

for a life be expanded to reflect the virtue of amended 

justice now commanding a life for multiple lives in a

gesture of humane forgiveness. No longer may a 

mass murderer never see the light of day again, but 

treated to the forgiveness of a kind society affirming 

the errors of his ways assuming the lighter the sentence 

for murder the more enlightened society and its justice.

 

Groping Through the Void

 

Open, instant, discreet mass communication

the breadth of which can be invigoratingly

fascinating as we 'speak' remotely to strangers

people from ethnic groups, cultures, backgrounds

so unlike our own. Messages suddenly there

begging for response, yours to ignore or

perchance to open, the risk of solicitation

of funds to support a cause, of revelations

of yearning to be assisted in migration or

more commonly a lonely soul seeking

passive friendship. Of them all the predator

prepping prey for the chance to pounce. It

is the plaintive requests from Iraq, Iran and

Afghanistan that most chill the mind in stark

foreboding; you empathize, offer comfort but

cannot proffer substantive material assistance

for all the downtrodden, oppressed and fearful

victims of violence and persecution in a world

where live testimony of forlorn tragedy reigns.

 

 

What Happened?

 

When I was a child a lifetime ago I was taught

Black history in elementary school. When my parents 

spoke to me of the inequity of fortunes in the world

Black history featured large. At school I learned 

words and melodies of 'Negro Spirituals' like 

'Go down Moses, Go down in Egypt land

tell old Pharaoh Let My People Go', sentiments

meant to give comfort and hope for the future. 

For if Israelites were slaves in ancient history

they no longer were and nor would their own be

much longer. From  the use of Jewish antecedent 

history to their own enslavement in a world where

from pre-history forward the condition of slavery

prevailed where people born into slavery in Greece 

rose to positions of authority and influence, when

philosophers like Phaedo, Diogenes and Epictetus

were slaves, to the present where slavery has the odour 

it deserves yet persists, slavery existed on all continents 

afflicting every colour of skin. Human memory and 

emotion is fickle. Blacks now see fit to condemn the 

very people who once stood beside them to force a 

society to confront its history of racist exploitation.