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.

 

Oh Unhappy Fate

What's a prince of the House of Windsor
to do when his grandma is so mean to him?
The covenant as he knows it, is shattered
and it is nought to do with him. Bred in
his purple blood he knows his royal
prerogatives. Where now can he turn
betrayed by all but those entranced by
his free-wheeling celebrity? To that manner
born was he, inherited from the mum whose
absence he mourns. A thespian he, with a
penchant for costumery and Tomfoolery
for whom the forbidden held an estimable
attraction as he raged against conformity
and basked in the glare of publicity gaining
admiration from rank commoners' penchant
in aversion from social niceties. Suffering
the ultimate pathology of love and hate in
his dodgy connection with a public passion
for royal disgraces he has, like another
sought to right royally bring discomfort
to the royal family. Yet he has matured, the
impish non-conformist become a family
man, discovering a persona so alike that
of the mum he lost; addicted to attention
serene in her ego, tempting the paparazzo
while railing against loss of privacy, poor
soul. How traumatic to finally discover that
though entitled, he does not make the rules
to do as he wishes while retaining titles and
 public largesse. So what then is a prince to 
do downgraded to junior Duke and Duchess?

 

National Dilemmas

  Photograph: Sombo Sombo/Alamy

National Dilemmas

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 die, 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.

 

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. 

 

 

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.



 

I Think, Therefore I Am

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.

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.