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.

 

A Light Unto The Nations

 

In the annals of human lore there are

unique and rare stories whose ancient

origins are located in the mists of time

and this is one of them. This is a story

of humankind whose iteration is endless.

One for which there is surely a genesis but

just as surely no limit. It endures in all its

manifestations with no sign of flagging

as it makes its way into the future. It is

not a fable, not a myth, not a folk story

but a repeatable occurrence that no

measurable calamity is capable of stemming.

For the cause and the reaction stirs itself to

life without end. It is not exactly a story

of unrequited love, nor is it a story of

human compassion overcoming adversity.

This story is, by any measure, one of

ghastly horrors, of a mass rejection of

the presence of a people upon whom is

visited, era following era, catastrophic

enmity and annihilation. It is a people

among whom the seed of genius has been

generously endowed yet whose purported

character is unfailingly held in contempt.

It is a people for whom hope and a future is

denied but  to which they themselves cling fast.

 

To The Manor Borne

 

Royalty knows its place, one like none

other; where once it was the masses that

served their imperial highnesses modernity

has decreed that now those of high royal

birth whose status remains funded by the

great public, now serve the masses and the

greater interests of society, a society unable

to expunge from its imagination nobility's

vaunted presence celebrating high birth's

unique place in societies priding themselves

on egalitarian progressiveness. Royal

houses seek to find favour increasingly

by appearing as one of the masses they so

ably represent, accepting they are but human

albeit of a gilded variety, and eager to curry

favour of those taxed to fund a sumptuous

lifestyle burdened with public service, no longer

seek out those of extended royal blood for

marriage. Youthful iterations of nobility

search out their own choices and invariably

introduce their royal forbears to commoners

of heart-stealing virtue. Alas, genetics impinge

and those to the manner born in superior

self-regard scorn tradition and the trappings

of royalty, sending head-spinning messages

of rejection as  they indulge in lese-majeste.

 

 

Oppression, Persecution, Revolt

 

Tyrannical rulers invent the rules of their

realm starting with their reliance that those

whose lives they dictate meekly defer to

those with state power knowing full well

the default of inevitable arrest, imprisonment

torture and death declaring them enemies of

the state. Should an almighty deity be invoked

as proof the tyrants are vested with godly

authority, all the greater obeisance and

obedience follows. But even the oppressed

and the downtrodden will recognize limits

to their despairing conditions when resignation

impulsively transforms into viral outrage, their

humiliation and powerlessness sparks into

flaming dissent and a mass revolt erupts

when one and then another domestic atrocity

too many leaves them reeling in disbelief

at the excess of inhumanity they are subjected

to with casual ease. Then, the tide turns when

the tyrants understand the power of numbers

reflecting an unstoppable tide of rejection

and a universal call for the regime's downfall.

Initial brutality, the swift response to quell the

riots fail, leaving the rulers to quail in dismay

offer profound apologies, promise reform in

deference to the peoples' wishes but nothing

can now defuse the volcanic eruption of human

grief and rage prepared to destroy those whose

preoccupation has too long been the ultimate

challenge of vanquishing the human spirit.

 

 

I Think, Therefore I Am

17th-century, Consciousness, Robert Fludd

What peculiar quirks nature has devised in

her impeccable creation, endowing me and

thee with consciousness, awareness, the

capacity to think and to plan, to imagine and

to theorize, exercising cerebral function as

though we are not merely one with nature

but perhaps nature itself. As a powerful

instrument forever challenging understanding

of what, where and how we fit into the world

around us, and how that world exists in a vast

constellation of other worlds, of stars and volatile

gases and minerals revolving and evolving, our

thought processes explore the vastness of the

unknown, theorizing and experimenting as

though we were not ourselves merely the dust

of exploding stars but the creator of all that

exists. Imagine this: theoretical physicists

studying quantum mechanics play with the

notion of the unknown of creation and its

sister existence in the wan belief that what

we think of as consciousness is but an illusion

as is the world we inhabit, ourselves included

for without our observance creating that

presence it would not, perforce exist. Really.

 

Beware The Urban Forest

 

They are sagacious creatures, bold and

masters of strategy as befits those of

the animal kingdom's predators. Much

after all, depends on their practised

hunting habits, for in their ancestral

habitat they maintain a balance in the

presence of creatures they stalk. They

are also particularly adaptable, since

their once-wild geography was invaded

and with little interest in seeking refuge

from interlopers they have become

extremely skilled at slinking about in

the background making full use of the

same green spaces so valued by other

animal species including man. Human

habitation in close proximity to those

natural places where they can den and

procreate is of little account for they

are also adept at scavenging albeit not

preferentially. Their appearance is

similar to that of the dogs that people

walk in natural settings, oblivious to

the presence of untamed canids though

the dogs detect their presence alerting

themselves that long-distance cousins

are about, seldom imagining themselves

prey. Silently lurk the coyotes awaiting

opportunities; one offering the prospect

of play-time friendly dogs are eager to

indulge in, unaware that others unseen

follow behind fully prepared for action.

 

 

Where Are You?

 

 

They're there, simply there, though not
often seen when geography creates distance.
A vague acknowledgement that one has
sisters and brothers that time has
distanced. Absence makes memory
fainter, not necessarily fonder and little
time and emotion is harnessed to stray
thoughts of their lack of presence, despite
early shared familial experiences.

Yet, as we age and our lives move ever
yet tangentially, there arises the piquant
sadness of longing for something lost and
neglected. With age comes illness and
emotional deprivations; the realization
that we are alone, the inspiration to
re-discover lost siblings, the urge and
the spur to act, to reach out, to recover.

Shared blood and belonging now entreats
the elderly to reach back in time and
memory, to find that elusive comfort, the
mutual sympathy siblings harbour for one
another as they move inexorably toward
life's concluding stages. The instant grasping
of rapport re-visited, the tenderness, the
unspoken grief and gratitude, all there
awaiting that call to rescind distance
and emotional wavering of uncertainty.

There is much to say, to express, to
commiserate with, to update and to pledge
for the future. To casually, carelessly lose
grasp of those binding ties an error in
judgement reflecting bereft values and a life
too concerned with surface issues of scant
moment. To restore the loss requires a
simple resolution: I am here, where are you?
Please, meet me half way to our future. 

 

 

National Dilemmas

 

  Photograph: Sombo Sombo/Alamy

In poverty-stricken countries of the world

 

which we may no longer refer to as Third World 

 
countries but rather make full use of the

 
euphemism 'emerging economies', there is one

 
inexhaustible natural resource the envy of 

 
First World economic nations; the growth

 
steady and reliable, of their populations where 

 
the natural increase grows and grows despite

 
privation, food scarcity, joblessness and lack 

 
of medical care and the unfortunate loss of life

 
accompanying those lacks. In those countries 

 
governed either by incompetents or a hierarchy

 
of privileged elites for whom nothing of concrete

 
value lacks, the great unwashed for whom

 
sanitation, potable water, basic foodstuffs, power

 
and health care remain beyond imagination it's 

 
live or perish as fortune rolls her dice, and  hope

 
is lost. Yet wealthy nations grapple with their

 
confounding statistics that emphasize population

 
replacement expectations remain mysteriously

 
misplaced for as the aged die, fewer are born to 

 
replace them. This, even as administrations enact

 
legislation and expend treasury to enhance

 
the prospect of child-bearing, offering measures

 
inconceivable to those others, even while

 
residents of wealthy nations sneer at their

 
subsidies, the child care provisions, the health

 
care, the paid parental leave, as insufficient

 
in depth and quantity as a persuasive gambit.

 

 

Settling Into Winter

 

Wickedly bad tempered of late
she has sent one of her acolytes
to vent his ill tempest upon us
simply to remind, lest we forget
what forces they are that obey
Nature, corresponding to our
frail-minded clinging to puny
humankind's feeble management.

That ill wind, in intense
intercourse with a tempestuously
plunging atmosphere, and a
side dalliance with those
battered, bruised clouds venting
vapour over the land
has us cringing in paroxysms
of mortal distaste.

Trees surrender to naked despair.
Fish dive deep and anxiously hover.
Birds make frantic haste
to leave this familiar space.
While insects burrow deep
to wait out the annual tantrum.

Creatures of the forest gather
what they may to make
themselves scarce as the
landscape inexorably alters. We
grimace at the discomfort of
increasing displays of distemper.

Cringe before her directed onslaughts
of frigid air, wild wind, icy sleet, rain
and snow. Like other animals
we wait out the angry funk.
Awaiting opportunity to resume
the ease of changeable
Nature's goodly graces. 

 

 

Unquestioned Faith

 

William Blake

What a conundrum it is that the human psyche

finds no rest within its spirit in the absence of

the recognition of faith in a spiritual and heavenly

instructor whose divine guidance resonates in 

the human soul with gratitude that such an

all-powerful spirit, one whose nature it is to 

permit the existence of all that is and to grant

humanity exceptional stewardship of all

creation as the centre of the universal being

of all that is and will ever be, favoured as they

are with the instruction to worship none other

for all are false posing as prophets claiming

kinship with the almighty one, of whom there

is none other. Peace and loving kindness the 

primary observation of this tender god in whose 

name and thunderously pious injunctions to

follow and bear witness bringing others to his 

celestial knee, in the process striking the terror 

of anger in no wise suppressed should human 

actions displease the spirit in whose name peace

and loving kindness is proffered to all, even the

misguided, choosing to abstain from serving 

god's will, who for their unfortunate choice must 

vacate life, for what the holy spirit has created

that same spirit can uncreate, with the avid

helpfulness of those of unquestioned verities.

 

 

Mistress of the Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardens, muted of colour
form, texture, fragrance
are now a collapsed
architecture, delighting us
no longer as fall deepens
into garden-bleak winter.

Gone the thriving, brilliant
choreography, the boundless
exuberance of bulbs and tubers
bursting into flower, the shrubs
and fruit trees showering petals
transformed into luscious fruit.

The garden now is pallid
exhausted, its summer audition
long past, the chorus of blooms
extinguished, no encores as the
final departure of leafy canopy
has descended echoing dismay.

The curtain is prepared now to fall.
The last bow and curtsy executed
as nature asserts sovereignty.
Casually deflects assumptions our
efforts reflected ownership
of carefully plotted, nurtured
triumphant gardenscapes.

There is no perpetuity here, merely
the gardener's eccentricity in believing
she exerted control over the order of
her gardening efforts. A brief, illusory
delusion, a borrowed vision, a hallowed
trust now returned to nature
and winter's ascendancy.

 

Arming The Faithful

 

In a world obsessed with the wonders

of high tech, give some thought to the

preoccupation of Islam's ventures in faith

introducing to the world the advances

that can be made in asymmetrical

warfare with the use of low-tech and

no-tech, simply ingeniously using tools

at hand, beginning with tasking the devout

to prove the strength of their faith in jihad

with the ultimate sacrifice exalted in

the noble robes of martyrdom and heroism

to which end suicide vests become the

explosive devices of first choice followed

in haste by the simple medium of

improvised explosive devices as an

example, and for truly maximum impact

in the efficacy of holy wars astutely

diverting passenger jets as missiles 

aiming to strike symbolic high-rise 

edifices housing thousands of those

noncompliant non-believers as their just due

for insulting the Prophet. And during times

of high tension confronted by powerful

states whose enmity augers conventional

warfare their armaments well equipped

to extinguish the ambitions of conquest

full use of deadly missiles in planned

mass slaughter to send the world into

disbelief at the commission of war crimes

yet not seen as such by the perpetrators who

profess no responsibility for the carnage

and cast blame on those surreptitiously

assaulted by proxy militias on order

from none other than the sacred scripts

of a holy spirit whose disciples are legion.