Shining City On The Hill

 

Crass yes, pompous no. Rude and crude, Beloved of

the masses who saw fit to champion the degraded man who

held himself as The Greatest President Ever! Offering 

himself a second helping, offended that a restraining 

consensus had been reached to breach his determined 

assault on convention, tradition and social/political 

covenants whereby though elected to the highest position 

achievable through wile and nimble pandering to the 

vilest nature of humanity the time arrives when a nation 

takes stock of what it is their irrevocable decision has 

brought to bear at a time when they will no longer bear it 

inviting their erstwhile choice to depart and a successor 

to deliver them from an errant impulse. Little anticipating 

the strength of conviction in a hugely polarized nation 

its partisan trenches overwhelmed when a loser calls his 

base to reject his ouster and pandemonium ensues the 

disorder and violence blemishing with dissonance the very 

symbol of nationhood, order and governance now settling

over the newly, duly tarnished Shining City on the Hill.

 

 

The World As We Think We Know It

 

Something's happening here -- what it is ain't exactly 

clear for the world as we know it is canted, slipping its 

moorings and it is not simply the Planet spinning on its 

axis faster than it should, compressing time. Stop children

-- that sound you hear is your ancestors keening in sorrow 

at the world they knew fast declining. From Antarctica 

to the Arctic all the hemispheres of this Earth comes 

the tottering of empires and satrapies alike threatened 

by massive disorder from a capricious dysfunction. 

Legions of ideology, authority and power in disarray 

and confusion in a desperation of incomprehension

--  the world become a house of calamity, a common 

threat indifferent to intent or intervention unleashed 

beyond the historical record, a morbid pestilence of 

minuscule dimension yet enormous destructive power. 

The response of global incoherence another tragedy.

The Philistines of Language Identity

 

Communication is what binds us one to another

the means by which we express our thoughts

emotions and values finding common cause 

as humans for we all have thoughts, values and 

emotions though they may differ in degree yet

rarely in dimension so great that the verities of being 

are questioned, denied and renamed becoming 

part of a new language of description upturning 

normalcy and denying the most basic concepts of 

nature. I am female, a woman and a mother, a wife 

and a sister, a daughter and an aunt. Oh yes, and a 

grandmother. This is what I am though a newly 

disordered world of language seeks to deny these 

identity classifications. The engaged compassionate 

progressives of today cannot possibly commit to 

any greater crime against language and my identity 

which I hold as dear as the cranky entitlements

of those rejecting binary coded language; simpering 

in their unctuous eagerness to gift to the sulking few 

claiming themselves to be other than conventionally 

biologically identifiable the privilege of  tossing 

language into the dustbin of faulted history in this 

new, aggravated sense of entitlement in which we

are casually sacrificed to a non-gendered world.

The Ghouls of Death

The ghouls of Death are on the march again

those who pledge themselves to the urgency

of plying their trade as messengers and martyrs 

for whom intimate relations with Death bespeaks 

their eagerness to sacrifice themselves as a gift to 

the Supreme Being prepared to welcome them to 

Paradise while counting their victims establishing 

ranking in the  hallowed halls of death-dealing 

for those who forswear the cause are doomed to die 

and theirs are the hands of delivery. Fury at the 

death of their commander spurs them to march in 

solidarity of their drive to conquer. Puzzling that 

they rage over such a death -- involuntary, the same 

methodology as their own to remove a threat to 

civilization, the leader piously inciting his followers 

to mass slaughter of infidels, when his death advances 

his own awarded journey to Paradise, the master 

martyr whose noble cause his dedicated followers

swear to mount in vengeance of his timely demise.

Is That You?

 

Those ubiquitous brief identity sketches, think brisk

notional biographies of values, likes and dislikes which

people draw attention to themselves with variously;

animal lovers, the natural world, gastronomy, music

literature, sports enthusiasts, oenophiles, BBQ addicts

political culture, ethnic groupings, religious devotees -- 

all to paint a composite drawing of an individual, some

occasionally venturing into the specific territory of

socially-impolite but widely shared antipathies toward 

other groups and identities yet rarely do they add

character defects generally rejected by civil society 

with identifiers like venality, egotism, fascism and 

galloping misanthropy -- though given time and exposure 

inevitably those frailties and constructs revealing shame

slip through the protective layers shielding identity

and it can be quite interesting to analyze character flaws 

not through conjecture but inadvertent revelations casually

expressed by the transparent postings of those believing

their cover secure, well designed to have them appear 

quite other than what they truly are; veering from the

exceptionally well-adjusted person they would prefer

to be thought, to the flat-out sociopath whose persona

tends to flare to prominence, protective veneer asunder. 

The Waiting Years

 

Her home is old, a rural farmhouse now all of

a century and a half old at a time when the

concept of energy efficiency was unknown

so she is given to inhabiting two main rooms of 

the story-and-a-half building, the two well enough

heated to warm her old bones nearing the century 

mark herself and alone since her husband died 

a decade earlier. Declining senses have left her 

the consummate lover of literature and music

abandoning the bursting book shelves that surround

her, though still listening to music her mind as 

robust as it ever was. She must now live the life 

of a recluse, vulnerable to the prowling of a menace

unseen and viral, so her memories vibrant and 

dear visit to strike up conversations with her. On 

special occasions she rings up old friends across the

seas never again to visit yet memories sharp enough 

to recall childhood and student years together and 

the dreadful unforgettable war years of deprivation

and fear. Now they live in peace and contemplative 

content examining the years behind, waiting.

 

 

Fond Hope

 

There now, doesn't that feel one whole lot

better? We've shown the past 365 days the exit

and all it took was one colossal cooperative

determination to shove it out the door with the

message that humanity was done with it. It

left not with a blessing but a curse pinned to its

arse. So now we have a brand-new 365 days

of the future and we plan, every one of us to

make the most of this new beginning. Not to waste

one day of it. And how was your day numero uno?

Reversals are in order, and we pledge in earnest

to extend ourselves in an effort to reach our due

potential as decent human beings; did the goddess 

of all that is visit a plague upon us to emphasize 

the depth of our depravities?; and to be kinder to

one another. What a jolly thought, and good luck!

Well why not since we have the opportunity to

start anew and have everything come up roses...