The Love Affair

 

When love is new, fresh and exciting

the exhilaration and expectation become

headily intoxicating as we familiarize

ourselves with the moods and moves of

the object of our loving care, viewing

attributes leading to emotional attachment

through the sparkling lenses of fiery stars.

Midway through the dedicated years of

conjoined habitation a subtler sensation 

of comfort and satisfaction overlays the

sensuality of feelings toward the beloved. 

When old age sets in we wonder what might

have happened to the original and pine for

a return to the times when life was far less

complicated and infinitely more rewarding.

And so it is that the garden upon which so

much time and attention was invested becomes

worn and weary of satisfying our unquenchable

thirst for blooming beauty, becoming cranky

unwilling to satisfy the gardener's whims and

concerns over the thuggish ill-mannered plants

that now argue with their neighbours over

the territorial possession of common ground

apportioned neatly one to the other and the

garden becomes a battleground of disgruntled

vegetation heeding no advice from a mere

human twisting hands in despair over the

nature of irreconcilable negation of order.

It's Seasonal Migratory Route

Its flight path a long and exhausting journey

the great bird returned first to a remembered 

forest coupled with its inherited instinct for 

self-preservation from the winds and snow of 

a northern winter to launch an annual migration

southward. Standing silhouetted in the cool 

running waters of a forest stream as though

contemplating survival linked to seasonal 

withdrawal, its grey and blue feathers winked 

out by the sun's inquisitive rays, it suddenly senses 

an oncoming presence shifting through the forest 

understory and lifts itself awkwardly from 

the water's clinging comfort, legs tucked back

wings outspread, suddenly regally graceful 

as it soars above the forest canopy of autumn

coloured foliage, settled in to roost until the

threat has passed, thence to resume its silent

acquaintance with the stream that will be

its home for as long as fatigue instructs the

bird to remain before resuming its journey.

The Killing Battalion

The glowing pride in memory of a unity of

purpose, the collegial atmosphere of like-minded

stalwarts all volunteering their services in a

truly transformative cause that would change

the world in the final absence of a breed to

whom all the cares and faults of humanity were

attributed, count among the happiest, most fulfilling

years of the nonagenarian's life, a time of tense

world affairs that enriched his life with the

engagement of the battalion of his choice whose

purpose was clear and noble. As he nears the

century-mark in his long life he reminisces of

the glory days for his memory remains intact. Not

so the memories of those whose armed forces were

sent out to sacrifice their own lives to stop the

beast of war that dispatched these killing formations.

Forgotten are their monumental losses in fighting men

and innocent civilians for so much has intervened

as the world carries on. Then the occasion when an

unforgivably forgetful government invited him to

meet a world leader whose family had perished to

the killing fields, presented as a patriot to loud acclaim

the killer and the target. Those who had escaped death

revealing his identity of pride, warm with the memory

of accomplishment, yet confused that his persona's

appearance and applause suddenly lurched to disgust

and condemnation, as lost memory was restored.

 

Justin Trudeau's Canada

Insensate to the wounds of history

those for whom pain and suffering 

were spared become negligent in their

observations, liable to confusing the

very reason for a world war, unaware 

of its victims, careless of its aggressors

indifferent to the commission of war crimes

incapable of distinguishing Axis from Allied

heedless of genocide and sacrifices. For

disaffected memory dims with liberty

so hard fought for and gained enabling

the casual glance back if required but not

necessarily required. So it is that a grisly

old soldier with a grim background of 

voluntarily choosing to hate, maim and kill

the helpless targets of a state genocidal pogrom

 can be described as an honourable veteran

whose past is one of courage and honour 

feted as such in the very bosom of a nation

dedicated to justice and freedom. A calamity

of judgement bringing upon itself shocked

attention from those whose memories have not

faded, resonating almost a century later with

the incalculable loss of family and future.

The commission of mindless assault on that

memory revealing a soulless political game 

of theatrical pretense for which no apologies

or recognition of judgemental lapse ensue.

Tomb of the Unknown

Hush ... listen, can you not hear it? That low

anguished moan, a chorus of disbelief. Muted

only because it comes from so far off ...

A cry of disbelief, and outrage, but most of all

pain at the message that flew to them from

the distant land of the living. They, the vast

legions of Canada's best and brightest who

answered their nation's call to battle when fascists

threatened the world order while committing a

monstrous genocidal atrocity, sacrificed themselves

so that others might live in freedom, believing 

their legacy and that of untold millions who did

not survive would forever resonate in resolute

memory to be venerated and thanked in grave

perpetuity. Humanity's memory is short and

forgiving, how else rationalize the appearance

before Parliament of a nonagenarian applauded

as a military hero of Ukraine, then to discover

the standing ovation honoured a man who had

pledged allegiance to his Nazi overmaster as a

willing recruit in the shadow-war to annihilate

Europe's Jews. The bitter taste of bile, the cause

for which they surrendered their lives perverted

through their government's addiction to virtuous

theatrics by a prime minister who sacrifices

homage to truth and justice for political gain.

Come One, Come All

The land of my birth is a country of incomparable 

breadth and beauty. Its forests and lakes, prairies 

and rivers, mountains and wide, deep valleys 

are a richness of nature's infallible creation. 

A land of aboriginal peoples and great hordes 

of immigrants investing their lives and the future 

of their children in its capacious geography and 

boundless promise. A land whose wealth in

natural resources, in metals and petroleum 

minerals and arable land are unmatched. The 

resourcefulness of its people in science and 

technology is superlative. Underpopulated and 

energetic in outlook its governments embrace 

ambitious world migrants to enrich its culture 

and industry. Eyes on the future, successive heads 

of government have chosen not to notice that

among those migrating to Canada visas are issued 

for war criminals whose pasts are shielded from public

scrutiny, and agents of repressive regimes with 

blood on their hands, while others violently agitate 

to disrupt and destabilize countries of their origins 

shrilly slandering and plotting heinous acts of terror. 

The while this country's prime minister sees no evil 

hears no evil while seeking induced consensus from 

a reluctant population for his favoured cults, hissing 

insults at those who disagree with the arrogance of

wholesale interference in the social weal and when

 charged with malcompetence and ethical lapses 

snarls at his opponents while laying fault elsewhere.

In Thrall to Ersatz Virtue

A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

And there are some tedious addictions for which

no cure is possible. Sanctimonious virtue-

signalling a case in point to which many in

the country can attest of a prime minister who

is totally committed to proving himself a just

man of peace, upholder of human rights of all

descriptions. Details such as citizenship given to

immigrants bringing with them the baggage of

past criminality, terrorism and hatred of others

notwithstanding, in Canada one can practise

all of the above with no obvious constraints. In

Canada incriminating indoctrination to violence

meted out to foreign countries goes unnoticed

by 'authorities' even when threats of violence

circulating within the country become lethal. In

courting ethnic/ideological voting blocs the

nation's liberal-progressive leadership pledges

its support even among the indiscreet criminal

class guilty of waging divisive tactics among

their opponents in reflection of a prime minister

whose classic modus operandi paves the way.

 

 

This Forest

It is an urban forest located within a ravine

skirting the outer limits of a teeming metropolis.

A place shimmering green in summer, the forest

floor deep in white during long winter months. 

A natural ecosystem providing habitat for animals 

of the northern hemisphere. A verdant forest of 

conifers and deciduous and a lower story of shrubs 

and feral fruit trees. Alongside its many and varied

trails grow wildflowers and soft-berry shrubs and

canes. Bluejays, Great Blue herons and goldfinches 

pass through on their twice-yearly migratory flights 

while chickadees, nuthatches, robins and cardinals

stay the winter course. A stream bisects the forest 

wending downstream to a mighty river. The forest 

canopy sees gaps where mighty pines, poplars, oaks

and maples topple now and then by violent derechos 

and micro-tornadoes, windstorms and ice storms 

wreaking havoc on the forest. This forest invites 

casual visits by nearby residents who regard its 

wild and natural presence as a gift from nature.

 

 

The Cobra Strikes

Never underestimate the malice that can be mustered 

by a humiliated impulsive narcissist. The fury of a man 

whose feeble efforts at winning over global colleagues 

to smear the reputation of another whose overtures have 

been summarily repulsed at a time when his own electorate 

view his domestic incompetence in sundering the social 

cohesion and economic future of a once-great country 

who has set out to belittle and degrade the condition of

another. Arrogant theatrics serving to highlight his virtuous 

sense of justice suddenly unleashed on a world audience 

in righteous indignation with unsupported charges of 

lethal violence. This from a leader whose moral compass 

long unhinged has teetered on the slope of ethical judgement. 

Yet call him to account for his maladjusted sense of entitlement

and absent conscience, and he becomes a pouting puerile

autocrat unbecoming the leader of a Western democracy.

 

Brave New World

They want their children to become literate

just not literate in the sweeping new wave of

gender fluidity and the invitations posed to

curious children to consider how intriguing

it might be to cash in their current gender for

the opposite. And so society is now divided

between those traditionalists who believe that

nature designed its creatures for reproduction

in the unending drama of preservation of the

species, survival carried forward into the eternity

of existence through sex and the sexes. Their

disagreements so profound each rejects the

other, one deriding convention claiming the

best interests of the child are to be what they

imagine, the other claiming the right to be

involved in their child's future as a nurturer

and adviser. Clashing social-cultural ties to the

extent that each names the other in the most

disagreeably disparaging terms. On the one

hand exposing children to the vagaries of being

what you want, on the other don't tell your

parents. Explicit sex stories for pre-literate

toddlers, drag shows to entertain precocious

children, eyes agog at spectacles unlike any

never before imagined, and parents outraged

their parental authority has been breached

mocked and taunted by a sensational new

mode of educating the young to take their

place within a society for whom theatrics and

no-holds-barred sexual license be broadcast

near and far in this Brave New World.  

Old Battles Never Die Nor Do They Fade Away

Solutions to surmounting the primal

human condition, gifted to humanity

in its creation by a thoughtful nature

whose blueprint of species survival may

have served its original purpose but is

evolutionarily contraindicated in a world

grown tight with a human population that

clings to its geographic origins in its

identity manifestations of ethnicity and

tribal interests where culture, politics

religion and social mores serve to divide

and victimize becomes a fraught dilemma

when countries that regard themselves as

enlightened, stable and accepting pose

as the rescuers of the flotsam surviving

war and famine, tyranny and poverty

through the open gates of immigration

and the receptive haven for refugees all of

whom bring along with their families 

the possession of grievances reflecting

the very persecution and threats they

suffered in their places of origin. Within

their newfound refuges they form their

identity groups fomenting plots and viral

vengeance against polarized-identity

groups also harboured in the shelter of

their new homes nurturing growing issues

of dominant repression one against the

other until finally the haven they yearned

for becomes as disengaged from the

imagined life-aspiring future under the

weight of their collective anomie as those

places from which they have escaped.

 

 

How Strange It Is!

 

As a feature of indecent human nature to

jealously guard what is not theirs in the

arcane belief that claims are nine-tenths

of a just law of ownership it is beyond

strange that the most creatively talented

group on Earth from ancient times to

the present remains hounded, threatened

detested, their heritage and ancestry

mocked and belittled yet the articles

of their faith, their history, their land

and their contributions to the world

that shuns them are valued decoupled

from their source in counterclaims of

authenticity. From brilliance of thought

and reasoning, execution of monumental

discoveries to the ultimate horrors of

deliberate annihilation the world rushes

to claim originality and victimhood as

their very own experiences, denying both

achievement and martyrdom to the tribe

whose very existence profited them all.

 

 

Humanity's Nemeses

They may be accounted for as failed humanity

those who haunt the social order as psychopaths

whose presence is a threat to life itself in their

ego-driven faithfulness to Mephistopheles

a mentor of the dark underworld of death to

whom their existence as a plague of antihuman

malevolence owes much. The dark angel of death

roams the world, lingering on the shores of

nations where misery and pain flaunt their feared

primacy over populations cowering in dread

held in bondage to overseers whose brutality

debases the human condition, where fanatics of

unrestrained violence, power and conflict reign

unopposed. These proponents of envy, hatred 

and savage barbarity who dominate and instill 

terror in populations subordinate to their rule are

the bane of civilization's orderly assurances that

life is a sacred gift to be treasured. A civilization

that also produces an alternate counterpart to the

demons that stalk the vulnerable; these are the

courageous few who risk all to counteract the danger

imposed upon social order by humanity's nemeses.

Nature's Infinite Variety

Infinite: Limitless, Nonmeasurable, Boundless, Endless.

As in: no two snowflakes are alike. Nature has invested

in her creatures boundless intersections in genus and

phenotype within a single creation that comprises an

entire evolving, revolving, procreating biological species.

An organism sentient, resilient, creative and numerous

whose elemental bodily characteristics are unchanging 

yet differences abound in form, colour, height, geographic

origin, shaped by environment and culture. In the general

animal kingdom two reproducing sexes yet among them

masculinized females and effeminate males. Did they not

always confound society and themselves differentiating

from that instinctual pattern of genetic survival? Why so

suddenly a revolution in perception claiming a profound

diversity of gender dysphoria as though medical science

is parsing Nature's blueprint as an erring formula? Transient

phase or urgent recognition in enabling transition of a mind

mired in uncertainty and confusion confounding science?

Wondering, Just Wondering

Cats are notoriously wily creatures

well recognized for their independence

and their ferocity as predators much less

their uninhibited curiosity and penchant

for risk-taking so in that sense although

felines have the purported advantage of

nine lives seeing them through improvident

choices their chances of survival are

greater than that of humans whose own

imprudent impulses lead them astray with

one life only to hang in the balance. For

those who find value in their very existence

it is incomprehensible that others devote

their living hours to deadening their

awareness of the world around them

choosing instead to be delivered from

reality in dependence on substances that

sever their senses from life's burdens. In

holding the very essence of life as a trivial

toy to be trifled with does dependency on

drugs to alienate the user from life reflect

a deep-seated death wish whose fulfillment

is inconveniently foiled by the concern of others

moving heaven and earth to save them

from themselves in death interrumpere?

The Victimizing Victims

There are none so blind as those who will not see

who prefer the view from their very own lens of

sanctimonious justice in holding the victim on an

equal plane with the victimizers and content to accept

the victimizers' version of victimhood at the hands

of those they seek to murder hoping to destroy the

recreation of an ancient nation's resurrected ancestral 

home, coveted by a horde of hostile and violent migrants 

whose own geographies of origin support their terrorism 

against those of a different ethnic source and religion 

in the grim determination to deny return to their origins. 

Yet  it is the broad support of the nations of Western 

democracies who see fit to fund the violent aspirations 

of those who call themselves Palestinians, accepting 

their version of demented victimhood against the 

yearning of the Jews of ancient origins in their own 

ancestral lands, to be left to live in peace and security. 

Funding enabling a UN agency to transfer wealth to the 

Authority that speaks for the Arab usurpers who utilize 

that funding to reward their citizens who respond to 

their incitement to murder Jews in the hopes of destroying 

the dream of Zion. That same leadership that preys on 

its children to pattern them into the same mould of

'resistance' against the Jewish tribe occupying their

own heritage -- in so doing, 'victimizing' intruders

claiming the land as their own in the primitive mode

of territorial aggression and entitlements unto death.

As The World Turns

Stalin had his Mao and his Tito as they set 

out to challenge the world order to free nations 

from the bondage of imperialism and substitute 

total socialist equality as a newer more just version 

of a stable and prosperous world under the imprimatur 

of the power that lay within the Union of Soviet 

Socialist Republics. Ah, but that was then, in the 

old and yellow-curled pages of the past while

a new generation of post-Soviet yearning versus the

Great Power and its associates are proof-positive

that 'the more things change, the more they stay 

the same'. This current era still stokes the embers 

of powerful challenges on the stagnant world order 

with its subtler polemics and grumbling resentments 

equally polarized but yet cohabiting in the great hall

 of the United Nations, that conciliating hypocritical

establishment of diplomatic sanctimony. Where 

Vladimir Putin has his Xi Jinping and both dangle 

the wild card strings of Kim Jong Un whose volatile 

persona will puppet to no other tyrant's manipulations

in favour of his very own aspirations to the position 

of supernaturalism, forgetting that venerable fable 

of the conceit of Icarus flying too close to the sun.

 

Nature's Epic Tantrums

There is nothing subtle about the message

when Nature succumbs to one of her epic rages

momentarily setting aside her preeminent role

as creatrix in favour of wholesale destruction

unleashing her elements upon an unready world.

Earth wobbles on its axis as its tectonic plates

answer to disorderly conduction of energy and

volcanoes vomit eruptions of molten inner core

and wildfires ravenously consume forests from

one continent to another. Hurricanes blast their

ferocious entry disrupting oceans' aquatic life.

Floodplains are engulfed creating watery graves

for residents of towns and villages swept away

with their flimsy homes and mudslides destroy

mountainside dwellings destroying animal life

as a great stench of death poisons the atmosphere.

Nature's occasional breaks from nurturing her vast

creations in favour of discarding excess existence.

The Ultimate Demagogues

Narcissists by their very nature they are

extremely dedicated, their entire focus on

the sacred aspiration to elevate themselves

to positions of power and influence as the

ultimate elite of alpha provenance. They

must be viewed on the other hand through 

the identifying lens of predatory sociopaths

whose talents lie in the politics of persuasion

at times forcefully, alternating with unctuous

concern, gathering admiration for the single

minded dedication to the public sphere as

they attest their purpose to be a better society

framed by their conceptions of prosperity

for all, fraudulent as reality marks them to be.

An ego so powerful they cannot conceive of

the world failing to recognize their qualities

holding their personae in the kind of esteem

reserved for revolutionaries. And when their

actions betray the extent of their formulaic

deceptions leading others to recoil from their

dictates and mandates, the veneer of civility

slips as they respond, sneering at their critics

as contemptibly racist, homophobic scum.

Live Free Or Die

 

Mountains are to hills what elephants are

to mice. The very geology of great granite

protuberances that straddle the Earth's mantle

inspire awe, their gigantism both intimidates

and attracts the adventurous answering to a

subconscious urge to mount their summits as

though by so doing they have slain a giant.

And their allure extends through the hairpin

turns and twists of mountain roads to a variant

of the thrill-seeking spirit seeking intoxication

of the senses in daring mountain passes and

elevations on a motorcycle speeding the

tight curves taunting death's oversight in

proximity to gradients and guardrail-less

slopes where skids are lethal and the rising

mists portend a mysterious netherworld. The

sun's heat and updrafts conspire toward the

sound and fury of electrical storms where

thunder plays the drums of the mountain's

concerto, the wild wind blasting rain and

hailstones on the hapless skulls of those

intrepid motorcycle fiends speeding down

the mountainside, one hand on the handlebar

the other desperately shielding their naked

vulnerable scalps from the icy inundation.

 

The Ancient Tapestry of Light

 

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

He sat on the yellow soil comprised of sand and clay, legs folded under his torso, hands held in an imploring gesture before the deliberately heedless throng. His white dishdashah was no more stained than that of most, and his keffiye neatly arranged on his head; his grey beard as indicative of age, as their own grizzled faces. His eyes, they were different. They were not, in fact quite there. They were rheumy, running hollows, to which bottle flies were attracted, distracting him from attracting the attention of those who might give alms.

They turned away from him, despite the Q'uranic injunction to charity, for his appearance was repulsive and it shamed them also, that there were amongst them some whose need was clearly greater than theirs. And theirs was great enough.

He, caring little for their disgust, entreated them to pity and to do the will of Allah in recognizing his need. He shifted his position on the ground, vainly attempting to find comfort, and his visage took on the savage look of misery incarnate, his shapeless lips no longer forming the grimace he thought represented a smile.

Carrion-seeking birds, vultures with their red-ringed heads and long wrinkled necks thrust forward, crested the sizzling sky. Dust was everywhere, circulating in the lower atmosphere, clogging peoples' throats and nostrils, and those of their livestock. It settled, mud-yellow, on everything; the lintels of their homes, roofs, worn carpeting placed over olive, oil and water jugs. Building interiors were neatly inlaid with dust, particles of the cosmos, infinitesimally minute atoms representing everything and nothing.

Dust stifled the air of the marketplace, the plaintive voices of the women, heads carefully covered in deference to the Q'uran's injunction to female modesty, complaining about the steadily rising prices of mutton, fowl, dates, figs and grain. Risen too steeply for their liking, for their ability to pay. Mothers reached down to slap small hands that crept to the top of stalls hoping to snatch a nutmeat. Infants slung across their mothers' chests, held by stout linens, bawled in a disorder of animal and human sounds.

A hawk streaked the sky over a copse of date palms, shrilling. Wispy grey clouds, barely seen against the particulate matter crowding the canopy of the sky reflected the tattered grey of once-white garments. Glancing toward the west, squinting eyes could make out a sun-dog, portending some atmospheric change, perhaps another khamsin, perhaps a clearing of the sky to something resembling blue, inviting the overhead sun to bake the ground and burn bare feet.

In the near distance rose a curvaceously slender minaret, needling God's overheated sky. Cicadas buzzed the atmosphere. The sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer rang out and resounded in the still, torrid atmosphere. The hum of the crowd became muted, faded, as all turned; the women removing themselves from male proximity, to prostrate themselves facing Mecca.

The lyrical melody of a prayer as familiar as one's beloved's face piously rose to the heavens, toward Allah's patiently demanding hearing and benign approval, as his people surrendered for the third time that day to daily prayers.

In the courtyard of the Khedive's palace, roses, peonies, lilies, Persian cornflowers, delphiniums, safflower and red poppies thrived in vivid array and brilliant colour, sending their fragrance throughout the generously measured space. Where also grew olive trees, willows, pomegranate and bitterweed. Also acacia, wild celery, dill, henna and mint.

The cooling, tinkling sound of a water fountain fetched the senses to swooning, as the water fell gracefully back into the shaped pond wherein swam golden- and silver-hued fish among the blue water lilies and papyrus plants. A small, wrinkled man busied himself snipping spent flowers, stopping now and again to inhale, when a broad smile would overtake his toothless mouth.

Not a hint of cooling breeze to be felt anywhere. Not in the souk, nor along the dusty alleys, or in the palace courtyard. Within the seraglio, sensuous, full-bodied women with kohl-described, smouldering eyes spread their languid limbs on colourful divans. Within this area could be heard the melodic whispering of the fountain as it circulated in the dry air.

A grossly overweight Eunuch, his taut skin glistening with sweat, fanned himself desultorily, in a vain effort to find relief from the sweltering, gasping heat. He sat in the doorway, eyes vacant, dreaming of another place, where his ancestors had dwelt and of which he had heard whispered longings from his parents before he had been whisked mysteriously away in the night as a child, to this place.

The white, diaphanous fabric of the women's garments served to accentuate their voluptuous flesh, lovingly scented with aloe. Their pale skins glistened too, in those places which remained uncovered, but they were not dreadfully overheated, for large feathered fans moved the air about them, handled with ease by cherubic-looking little black boys, unclad but for a loincloth.

The women's soft voices resounded in gentle probing questions; one of the other, in solicitous regard, humming through the sumptuously appointed chamber within which they spent their days. One inhaled a water pipe. Another plucked the strings of an oud, a second held a tambourine.

The wing holding their many children was not far away and they might visit at will, but their duties lay here, looking beautiful, rested, inviting. Entertaining themselves. Engaging in the kind of gossip women thrive upon; their own inimitable, useful and socially binding transference of news. Besides which, they were all to one another, sisters, mothers, companions in bondage.

Their latest intrigue was the introduction of another, younger woman. A girl, really, but more than adequately nubile. Her introduction awaited verification of her intact hymen. They knew little of her, but that she came from afar, and was not of their tribes , nor a familiar of the clans. She would need to be comforted, they knew. Abbad Pasha did not tolerate discord in his harem.

A slave, young and graceful, carried a tray of refreshments. Dates, and grapes, and watered wine and pomegranate juice. Nectarines, kumquats, nuts and sesame paste. The fruit was welcome, and the young man was as well, for young as he yet was, he was beautiful, too. The women rose to surround him and tease him, and he blushed as their hands ran softly over his arms and his legs.

At the souk, a camel herder cursed as his lead camel ventured too close to the food-bearing stalls, and hit the beast repeatedly on its back, its snout, kicked it viciously to encourage it to back away and begin anew. Its outraged groans elicited no sympathy. Stalls laden with nuts, grains, dried fish and olives stood out in the main traffic area where most people shopped. Linens and rancid hides were to be had there.

Closer to the protective walls of the palace stood small semi-enclosed shops with copper objects, silver jewellery, linen garments and woven rugs. Slippers, leatherwork redolent of curing camel urine, along with tablahs, and dumbeks, and mizmars could be had there, as well. Not for most, but there for those whose wherewithal was equal to the prices of these esteemed objects. The occasional palanquin moved through the crowd in the torpid heat.

The beggar half-heartedly swatted the flies that plagued his existence, before finally realizing dusk was falling and he had no further hope of charity this accursed day. He awaited the appearance of his eldest son, upon whom he would lean as they hobboled back to their hovel.
He steeled himself to accept the burden of bringing nothing of value back with him.

He longed, in his fevered mind, for the impossible; a return to the time when his wife's adolescent face beamed whenever she saw his approach, her esteemed uncle. His eyes had been capable of feasting hungrily on her youth, grace and beauty. Now what greeted him was her silent reproach, and the plaintive mewling of their malnourished children.

His tormented spirit shrieked in haunted agony that would give him no peace. First, light left his eyes, leaving him in a dark universe of bitter disaffection and abandonment. Then, the light of belief had abandoned him. He had submerged himself in the poison of despondency, apostasy, denied the comfort of eternal Paradise.

Woe betide him.

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth;
the likeness of His light is as a niche
wherein is a lamp
(the lamp is a glass,
the glass as it were a glittering star)
kindled from a Blessed Tree,
an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West
whose oil wellnigh would shine, even if no fire touched it:
Light upon Light
(God guides to His light whom He will)

 

 

 

Looting The Past

It is the scourge of unsettled minds

that deeply embedded subliminal urge

enshrined in group memory to rage

and to destroy. From the Golden Calf

to Akhenaton's Aton, Bamiyan's Buddha

Rome's ruinous sacking of Jerusalem

and the newly outraged successors to

colonial rule, humanity has excelled in

raging against the past, denying history

wielding the fury of the oppressed to

hammer cultural artefacts as though

their destruction could alter the trajectory

of world events. Yet nothing is sacred

not the resting places of the ancients

buried with their treasures to carry

them royally into the following life

awaiting their arrival. The subconscious

urge to destroy fulfilling a vacuous 

wish to attain power over the once

powerful. Alternately looting the heritage

of subjugated people carrying home in

triumphal procession the sacred relics

of the ancients, clamouring for notice

that the possessors have gained what

others have lost in gainful conquest.