One Damn Thing ...

 

Willingly, eagerly he lent himself and his

unrivalled medical expertise to a mission

few others would undertake, one that 

reflected his status in the world of science

as a microbiologist determined to study

and to discover, in a world of passive

agony how to relieve the deadly burden

of pathogenic infection hurtling lost souls

to death as viruses swept the world in

deadly transmissions of historical dimension.

The loss of colleagues to those same morbid

threats, the pain of witness to countless

and growing death counts, the strain of

challenging his medical brain to greater

effort, the wearying hours and endless grief

took its toll sparing his life while urging

relief in alcoholic pacification of misery.

High-functioning, he diagnosed himself as

an alcoholic still capable of high performance

directing with finesse and acuity the vital

work of a world-class laboratory tasked to

solve nature's most malign threats to human

existence. Alcohol in excess taking its

bodily toll, slowly lulling him toward certain

death, he lent himself to a new experiment

to wire his brain with electric impulses

lifting his appetite for alcohol, manageably

restoring his zest for life, grateful for the

opportunity to indulge in ordinary routines.

Still young, another lifetime before him 

acclaim resonating for past success and 

future viability as a lecturer still in demand

that future was abruptly cancelled. R.I.P.

 

 

As It Happens

 

Granted, he is a loathsomely grubby

human being whose exploits in every

endeavour both personal and business

are replete with blotches of greed and

unsavoury conduct, slathered with outright

contempt for others, all of which make of

him a most disagreeable man. Yet there

is the reality that this man has the 

approval of a great public enabling him

in his new guise as politician to ascend

the executive order of first among leaders

of the free world, a public act of trust and

disgust in the actions of those preceding

him in that exalted office. For all of

that it was an exercise in democracy

with unforeseen results yet for every

action there are consequential reactions.

Honour and respect the role of a citizenry

to elect to public office that individual

they deem in their collective wisdom to

exemplify qualities of leadership and

wise counsel. Or oppose his ascension

in the bitterest of partisan reproaches then

employ every conceivable method to

depose his rule and flout the Republic's

devotion to the people's right to select

their government. And flout it they did

in the process devoutly portraying the

man in terms beyond his countless faults

displaying their own wretched descent

into resentful blame absent due cause

as they chose to brandish entitlement to

besmirch constitutional rights in a pique

of rancorous fury that all indices of an

office well administered salvaged him.

 

 

Library of the Mind

 

Libraries are not merely storehouses

of knowledge and entertainment

for though they are that and more

much more, they are a universe of

wonders awaiting discovery, each

volume a star revolving about their

shelves awaiting the opportunity to

bring to the minds of the curious

worlds they may never have known

existed, through an alphabet of words

and expressions whose content and

sentiment open vast vistas of the

imagination, inviting the reader to

indulge their brains and invest their

time in a pursuit whose outcome is

pure pleasure reserved for leisure

hours of relaxation as you delve into

the experience and locations of those

you will never meet other than in the

pages of absorbing content. There is

nothing mysterious or arcane of the

hunger within awaiting satiation in a

library. The mystery is there, however

how it is possible that some may live

their incomplete lives never perusing

the live print of an absorbing book. In

the final analysis it is the omnivorous

reader whose mind becomes a library.

 

 

Our Selves

 

Suspended in the primal aqueous

security of our mothers' wombs

we take presence in the genetic soup

that forms us, absorb our mothers'

plaintive whispers of accented fear

experience beyond memory the pain

and anguish that will mark our days.

Leavened by primordial nature's

ever-evolving displays of being

and the opportunities we are enjoined

to grasp, complementing destinies

fulfilling souls' desires. In the process

finding elusive pleasures. Discovering

possibilities, clasping them close

and in a lifetime hurling ourselves

into the future, the reality of life.

Neatly side-stepping when we may

the imperial realities of all existence that

inform and forewarn us, even while

we studiously look elsewhere

preferentially remain oblivious

to that long and steady journey

an imperative we cannot deny.

But then, why linger on the distant

inevitability when we can take comfort

in the meaningful present. Impressions are

what form our memory, our being

clasped close to the heart of who we are.

While we are here, the who and what we

are is what must consume our being.

 

 

Always a Bridesmaid

 

The essential dynamics of human trust

are elemental; sincerity, truthfulness and

open communication. Rare qualities to be

sure when two groups face one another in

an irresolvable struggle where one speaks

of inheritance while the other accuses those

of timeless existence in the disputed area of

being interlopers, false claimants to land

contestants intend to share with none other

than their own. The wisdom of Solomon 

put to the test judging whom between them

proffers the more valid argument when it is

an ancient temple dedicated to the almighty

which his era and his order established. Yet

his successors in the land of Judea where

his descendants have never failed to worship

and till the land welcoming an ingathering

diaspora's return are violently assailed by

challengers to a dry and history-dusted land

transformed by their enterprise to verdant

productively arable orchards, yet must turn

their ploughshares to military defence against

counter-claimants adamantly resistant to the

peoples' presence in a land of their own. So

frequently have the offers of apportioning and

friendship been refused the bridegroom is no

longer invested in cohabitation with the

sullen bride, left to bitterly call upon her

extended family to destroy the home that 

might, with earned trust, have been her own.

 

 

Bored, Are You?

 

Just so sick and tired of it all, predictable

and unexciting, all the promise in life

doled out to others with half your talent

and personality and it's just so bloody

infuriating. Well, there's this: for quality

excitement, imagine living in a country

whose dictator has spent years bombing

the hell out of people who don't appreciate

his rule. And then there's the suspense of

living in a tiny country surrounded by

other nations prepared to do just about

anything to destroy you and yours aided

and abetted by paramilitaries for whom

there are no rules not meant to be broken.

Right, you skate like the devil and get

that puck past any goalie and on a soccer

field you're the guy to watch. Your charisma

attracts women like monkeys to bananas

but they're not the elite brand and you're

sick of them. You can't afford the thrill

of climbing the Himalayas, much less 

passage to the moon or a trip to see the

melting glaciers on Antarctica. You haven't

experienced a tornado, a tsunami, a flood

volcanic eruption or earthquake. Life

could be a blast, but for you it's a bust and

the best you can hope for is secluding

yourself with video games emulating

war and natural catastrophes but it's just

not good enough and you rage revenge

on life, so who needs it? Life was all so

different in the good old days of pillage

and conquest and rape and destruction, so

much to live for. So, furtively, off you go.

 

 

Here In Spirit

 

You are gone, but your indomitable spirit

defying even the Angel of Death lives on.

Unbidden, memories of you visit us daily.

Your loss and our grief daily replenished in

snapshots of your loving and beloved

presence in our lives. Your brother recalls

your being there yet knows you are now not. 

There is nothing, no one that can replace

you in our hearts, though yours stopped

beating through the daily cadence of our 

lives together sharing the joys and all the

tribulations that life brings for all too short

a time. Little did we realize in the moment

when we took such anxious care to shield

you from the vagaries of life's unexpected

threats that the most implacable enemy of

life would nonetheless enter at the time and

place of his greatest advantage taking you

from us. Time's essence has not mitigated

our loss and your memories do not yet 

compensate for your abrupt departure.

  

Nature's Landscape

 

Nature's unrivalled genius lies not only 

in the unfathomable depth and breadth 

of her invention through timeless creation 

but the minutiae of the complex interrelations

each of her creations are imbued with, an

endless chain of existence interdependent and

exquisitely graceful and it is with gratitude

that her creatures observe the immensity of 

the landscape she has provided for practical 

and aesthetic sustenance. The most minor

of her creations of no less importance than 

those whose heightened awareness conceits

their sense of consequential primacy. The 

forest is a monochromatic landscape of 

black and white in its winter guise; its floor

steeped deep in snow, its trees dark and gaunt

its diurnal creatures stirring at dawn, the 

night-haunting raptors and four-legged 

stealth predators retiring at daybreak. Above 

the canopy an expanse of blue invites high 

flyers while woodpeckers cleanse tall old 

sentry hosts of larvae. Nuthatches and 

companion chickadees flutter here and there

while small furred creatures assiduously

search out seeds; their aquatic counterparts

shelter under icy streams that meander 

through the forest. The setting sun casts 

fiery fingers lighting the tallest of the forest 

trees until dusk arrives and night falls.

 

 

Irrepressible Malcontents

 

Yowling and howling with the wretched

injustice of it all, these tender flakes

of humanity represent an anomaly

where it has become evident they have

failed the test of social maturity, content

as they are, determined as they are to

remain malcontented juveniles forever.

Like children everywhere who seek to

possess what they see others have

and they not, quick to claim their

rightful ownership of all they covet

scornful at suggestions of civility and

the possibility of sharing so that others'

needs too can be accommodated. For

each and every potential solution to their

pouting pique they dissent with rage

then resort to violence reflecting their

reasoning that if they cannot obtain the

objects of their desire then no one shall

and those who occupy their desire must

pay the penance of death at the hands of

the aggrieved. They have lost the sympathy

of onlookers, the support of nearest kin

for their unreconstructed incorrigibility

has wearied all but themselves, left now

to their usual devices of demonic rage

for their unfulfilled aspirational tyranny

expressed in murderous defiance of

the merest scintilla of human decency.

 

Waiting...

 

With the limitless patience of the faithful

they wait, imperturbably confident and

assured, the seers and the shamans, the

yogis, the sufis and the swamis, near

Chichen Itza.  Their followers worldwide

besotted with the spiritual chill of the

unknowable void of being will settle for

alternates.  Awaiting the spirals of

heavenly light promised to invade the heads

of believers, from their vast galactic journey

they weep in fear and joy.  A cosmic dawn

arrives to gift the worthy with telepathy and

they will loose themselves from the

niggardly magnetic bonds of Earth, to

levitate and flee its constricting confines

set to implode.  Electrical vortexes

arrived from the galaxy's centre bid them

hither and they will respond, leaving fear

embracing love, bathed in the light of

transformative cleansing of the soul.  For

they have discovered true salvation, fleeing

the stagnating brutal influence of life as

we think we know it.  That is the revelation

the cataclysmic upheaval that engages 

humanity, at one with the golden light

of divine forgiveness, an arcane alchemy 

of  life bypassing death, the final frontier

to incandescent longevity.  If not immortality

then why not?  Thirteen and counting.

Look...at us, at them, the pathetic ones --

quivering with the misery of unrequited life.

 

 

Viral Pandemic

 

It lurks, an unsuspected menace

patiently awaiting opportunity

for this pathogen is a rapacious threat

its endurance and communicability

a fearsome feat of nature's strange

random endowments to her creatures

both minuscule and gargantuan

whether harmless or endowed with an

appetite to consume other life forms

on the path to realizing its dedicated

existence. From its original host

patiently waiting ... waiting ...

then striking and striking again

and yet again ... its unqualified

malevolence striking terror into

the minds of observers whose

medical training informs them of

its potential as a raving and present

risk to survival of its hapless

victims, sending the clarion call

of enhanced vigilance and urgent

calls to isolate and examine its very

nature the better to arm themselves

with a discovery capable of disarming

the beast's intention of calamitous

global destruction of humanity.

 

 

Your Truth

 

What could be as headily liberating

as the freedom to speak, to release

from the prison of your mind how

you feel, what you think, your

unsolicited but urgently needed

expressions of belief, your solutions

to problems that you know exist yet

are rarely discussed, the details of what

you know so that others may too and

from your generosity of sharing may

join you in your private campaigns

or laud your courage in airing such

sentiments, perhaps even assemble a

cadre of like-minded stalwarts in a

campaign to air the musty corridors

of certainty and introduce nuances of

disbelief challenging and exciting. So

no need to clasp silently those thoughts

and misgivings lest you betray your

enmity to the smug civility of the social

contract for the greater virtue of free

speech calls. You are not truly racist

when you parry-and-thrust verbally

over critiquing the criminality of

Zionism, the penchant of Blacks to

disrupt the serenity of the white race

the slovenly habits of Asians and others

whose culture and errant habituation

sounds the clarion of disruption to the

norms. And when you scathingly consider

feminism a symbol of man-hating

bitches focused on empowering women

while emasculating men. And nor do

women have a monopoly on gender

for any man bent on upsetting their

referential superiority has but to declare 

himself an absolute her for society to 

humbly genuflect for this, you see, is the

grand power of free speech utterances.

 

 

Exhibitionism's Grandeur

 

 

This child whose face is perpetually grimed

in a paroxysm of rage will never win a beauty

contest nor be credited with a sweet demeanor

but she has become immensely popular as one

with an aggrieved message to deliver in a

manner quite congruent with her pathology on

the autism spectrum of oppositional defiant

disorder, despising authority so redolent of

adolescent juveniles' resentment of adults

positioning themselves as authoritarian in the

belief they have the right to regulate children's

behaviour. Children invest much in their gleeful

assertions that it is adults with their lack of vision

who have disrupted nature's unblemished accounts.

What a different world we now inhabit than might 

have been imagined a half-century ago when

parents felt assured of the sex revelation of

their offspring at birth, to the very present 

when what you see is not necessarily what you

believe with gender dysphoria representing yet

another life-disruptive issue in the social order

pitting progressive authority against the mere

status of parenthood. Long years past people

were aware of quaintly rare anomalies such as

hermaphroditism and homosexuality and the

attraction to transvestism as an entertaining

novelty, before an entire championship and

celebrated industry arose embracing the

new reality of errant humanity's fascination

with the dazzling display of nature's occasional 

deviation from the boring irrelevant ordinary.

 

The Setting Sun

 

Today's is a hostile wind rousting

and howling through the naked tree

tops of the winter forest canopy.

At this season when half the world

is in mourning for the death of nature's

green growth and the other half of the

world celebrates its luxuriant blooms

memory grows dim in recalling the

brilliant colour that winter has banished

from the landscape, arrogating its reign

preferential in its exquisite presentation

of white, silver and black abolishing

the rainbow-array of dazzling shades

so luminous they inspire birds to sing

paeans to the growing seasons. The

bitter cold, with its knife-edge sharpness

the wind volunteers absorbs the glitter

of snow enthralling as the landscape

becomes. Until nature bestows day's

end with the glorious vision of the

setting sun's rays penetrating the dense

forest, setting dark trees aflame prefacing

the entrance of a short day's dusk.

 

 

Shoah .... Desolation

 

Theirs was the voice of anguish and fear

echoing spiritual disbelief and confusion

in the agony of yet another rejection

murmuring softly their trust betrayed yet

their proud existence as equals in humanity

before finally turning for compassion

abroad for hope was not yet lost though

the soul was gravely wounded. Their

obedience to a succession of rules meant

to disenfranchise and strip their humanity

a gradual exercise in humiliation finally

attaining the greater purpose in a precision

clockwork of organized cleansing toward 

the goal of national perfection and conquest 

where expunging the impure and inferior

was the first order of business to restructure

a world free of Jews. A voice unheard

calling to a disinterested audience oblivious 

with its deliberation of non-involvement

revealing a vile shared pathology. A lifetime

later the genocidal perpetrators profess

profound regret, their global audience

applauds and the sinister venom of hatred

that fuelled that genocide is once again

abroad in the resurgent world community.

 

 

In The Pre-Dusk Woods

 

In the final analysis the peculiar event

may come down simply to suggestibility

as in how susceptible you may be to unseen

but suspected creatures stalking you for

purposes known not only to its own natural

predation heritage but narratives dispensed by

others of personal worrying confrontations 

as well as news that such attacks have had

devastating consequences for those whose

devoted canine companions have sensed

danger and sprung to their humans' defense

sacrificing themselves to the jaws and claws

of creatures of the wild acting on compulsion

of their own survival. You are nervous and

wary, tramping through the icy winter forest

trails impressed on the deep snow leading off

paths into the density of the snowbound interior

where evening dusk is yet to creep its presence.

With you are two small dependent leashed

dogs who suddenly begin a hysterical chorus

of barks at the approach of a large and well

behaved dog and a woman with whom you

exchange cordial greetings and advise her

of the daytime presence of coyotes in the

wooded ravine you are both traversing. The

dogs leap and frolic then become suddenly stiff

while a movement off the side, furtive, quiet

captures your eye as you think you see a

tall, lean, grey creature sidling behind a

copse of trees,startled by the fuss; another

on the opposite side, as you incredulously

convince yourself that what you see is what

is occurring then and there. And suddenly not.

 

 

Heritage, Tradition, Culture

 

There is much reason to look back in time

with awe at the peak of civilizational, artistic

philosophical, scientific and inventive genius

of a multitudinous people of the ancient past

when the Middle Kingdom presided over

the East as an example of what the human

mind could aspire toward and the aesthetic

appeal of perfection in art when exquisite

scrolls brushed philosophical formulae for a

millennium of outstanding achievements in all

fields of human endeavour. Today we look back

with veneration at the fine creative intelligence

the invaluable lessons, the artifacts of grace and

beauty, and marvel. Archeology had dusted

away the accumulated detritus of time to

reveal peerless porcelains and jades, strategic

military formulae, terracotta armies, a great

wall able to withstand siege, administrative

genius based on merit alone and infinitely

more, revealing that ancient place of history

so at odds with its current iteration where

tradition and heritage are scorned in favour

of a brave new world of government monopoly

with an irresistible drive to mercantile power

and political conquest bypassing the values

of yore exemplified by thriving open markets

to feed the limitless population in varied

metropolises catering to China's vast appetite

to consume all that nature has given life to.

 

 

Look to Yourself

 

We are so besotted with ourselves

wallowing in the certainty that we

are unique, none others that live

or have ever lived, or will live

can possibly be as we are. Our

every experience, emotion and

reaction is ours and ours alone. It

is as though our Creator took endless

time, and thought and effort to pursue

a blueprint ours alone that no other

could conceivably possess. Our

shallow conceit speaks to our love

of self in a way that is never

extended outward to encompass

humanity at large which surely

has its own argument, each and

every one of their own enriched

passions and perceptions that none

others can emulate for it is beyond

their abilities. All of which enable us

to look with covert disdain on all

others though a genius once took

pains to message us all through words

and sentiments of immortal value.

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? 
Hath not a Jew hands, organs
dimensions, senses, affections 
passions; fed with the same food
hurt with the same weapons
subject to the same diseases 
healed by the same means, warmed 
and cooled by the same winter and 
summer as a Christian is? If you 
prick us do we not bleed? 
If you tickle us do we not laugh? 
If you poison us do we not die? 
And if you wrong us shall we not 
revenge? If we are like you in 
the rest, we will resemble you 
in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
 what is his humility? Revenge. 
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what 
should his sufferance be by Christian 
example? Why, revenge. The 
villainy you teach me I will execute                                                                                       and it shall go hard but I                                                                                                       will better the instruction.