Inscribed in the Book of Life

All religious devotees are piously instructed

to prize life as all religions extol themselves as 

purveyors of peace and good fellowship

emphasizing the ways of the sacred in the

divine path of the Almighty who in infinite

wisdom conferred existence upon the

universe and smiled kindly at the lifeforce

ingrained in humanity frowning only when

that creation spurned the commandments

impressed upon their consciousness to treat

others with the dignity reserved for the Spirit

who invested a spark of its own immortality

in each living thing. Somehow the messages 

to the faithful have been corrupted by those

of faint faith who portray themselves as the

arbiters of the faith's tenets as they persuade

their fellows to surrender their lives for the

greater glory of God and in the process offer

the lives of those who fail to follow their way

to God's favour. While powerful theists governing

the land declare those protesting their tyranny

to be in breach of God's divine instructions thus

forfeiting their lives as apostates, in service to God.

 

 

Annus Exitus

The year has grown old, tired and cranky.

Its once-boisterous entrance in youthful

enthusiasm has waned, festiveness no

longer on its agenda, long-term plans beyond

its light-stepping spring season forgotten as

it groans with the effort to produce another

and yet another day, unable to muster the

energy to produce ambient light of such short

duration it's hardly a day. Warmth has eluded

the year in its progress toward termination with

memory of a long and lazy summer bright with

flowers and butterflies long faded, a brief mirage

destined to end but in its passing handing over

to Autumn the vibrant shades of the rainbow to

drape over trees the year would soon assign a

long slumber to while its winter apprentice cast

dark and early dusk over the landscape in a 

dismal stage handicapping joy in the eyes of the

beholder then, contrite, showering it all with the

brilliance of shimmering sequins of ice and snow

the year's final gift before its ultimate silent exit.

 

 

Anniversary

I'm glad, really glad that you

were there where I had been but

remember, I was there before you.

I'm glad too that you were going

my way and so we went there together.

Wasn't that neat? Out of nowhere

there you were, even though I

recognized you and you had no idea.

You thought it was funny something

to laugh about but it was true. You

came in my dreams and then one day

there you were and I used my wiles

and you were trapped. So then we went

forward together sharing that far

and long destination. Didn't we enjoy it?

Lots to talk about now isn't there? 

You, the realist and me, the fabulist,

Seventy years and more to come!

Pharmaphobia

It boggles the mind the extent to which

irrationality in human minds shackled

to unshakable beliefs in calamitous 

outcomes waiting to pounce on those

incautious enough to have faith in science

preferring to bring on their own chances

of death clasping tight to rejection of

tried-and-true interventions to ensure

bypassing an untimely end, convinced

the medical community's agenda is not to

heal but to assist stalking death whose mission

is to reap from the bosom of life infants and

pharmaceutical-suspicious adults insisting

that a formula's success in widespread use

whose attributes shielded millions from

disaster is a malicious plot to reduce Earth's

population on direct orders from the devil.

 

 

Where? Russia, Iran, Turkiye, China

In liberal democracies there are costs to

defying the authority of government but in 

reflection of their political values citizens 

are free to speak as they will of their opinion 

as the governed. Granted there is a price to pay 

in the sense of being regarded as anti-social 

misfits, ingrates and the worst slurs of all racists

and homophobes, placing government critics

in the realm of unsavoury company and that

irrespective of their actual personal values. In

dictatorships on the other hand there are those few 

whose principles cannot be the least compromised 

by concerns of personal dignity besmirched for 

those are not the instruments of punishment meted 

out to the unworthy citizen who campaigns against 

corruption, exploitation, racist belittlement and 

violence. For these stalwarts their sense of caution 

for fear of retribution stands resolute against the 

fervour of their condemnation of the autocrats 

and tyrants who wage external war and violate 

human rights at will, praising and inciting terror 

groups who do their will as ancillary defense of 

the indefensible. Moral outrage leads these people 

of conscience to shunt aside fears in favour of 

broadcasting to the world the outrages of their 

leaders, whom the world soon enough discovers 

have been executed by firing squad or hung, or 

beheaded or crucified as penance for decrying evil. 

And the world shrugs looking elsewhere in a fit of

boredom for its latest titillating, unusual events.

The Enemy Within

From primal generation when apes

descended from their lofty perches

on high to perambulate permanently

upright upon two legs below the tree

line the single human race that birthed

itself to become homo sapiens turned

out to be less wise than nomenclature

would have us believe. From the primordial

to the present, existence for humanity

equated with a beating heart, a reasoning

brain, eyes and ears, emotions and language 

creating a biological identity with no 

variations other than those inevitably

socially transmitted and inherited to

divide the unity of biology into a vast

multitude of factions each claiming 

unique characteristics each viewing

the others as beyond the stream of

belonging, creating of humanity a sad

network of threatening adversaries in an

endless drama of violently lethal upheavals.

 

 

In Malice The Forethought

 

To be held in esteem

to be loved and cherished

to have someone with whom

you can feel emotionally free

to divulge all the discomfort

and discomfiting incidents

in one's life is everyone's goal

for we are human and our

generic nature is to seek out

those like ourselves whose

temperaments and values can

reflect our own in the creation

of a fluid and warm cocoon

of togetherness. People differ

and so do their circumstances

and their compass in life and

how they adjust to others in

their lives. How very fortunate

it is when two people harbouring

the fantasy of victimhood and

resentment in their juvenile

emotional state of estrangement

and petulant wish to cause harm

and pain to others discovered one

another to found their celebrity

team of malevolent misery.