On the Evil of Death-bed Conversion: A tribute to my Grandfather George

He was a well read, and self-educated man.
His grasp of basic quantum mechanics,
and cosmology, was phenomenal.
An advocate of progress and scientific development,
he abhorred retrogression in a society.

As an intelligent man he understood
that our highest accolade was to learn,
and to teach.
Alone, in a religious society,
he came to understand, and embrace,
the concept of atheism, and humanism.
His life reflected these concepts.
He did not reject religious superstition willy-nilly,
but only after careful thought, study,
and multitudinous discussions,
some heated, some calm and reasoned.
He was content with his decisions,
and his life reflected that contentment.

Diminished by his insidious disease
with the pain roaring through mind and body,
he had no strength to reflect, to contemplate,
to regret.
His family stayed near, but ultimately
he was alone with his anguish.
The whispered prayers, and quiet sadness
of religious kin, dripped into his failing consciousness
as, with a final act of love,
he accepted the exhortations,
and let their Jesus offer them,
not him, a final comfort.

Somewhere in the multiverse,
he hunts duck, moose, deer, 
and converses with Bertrand Russell,
and Robert Service and Jack London
are pleased to receive his critique
of their work.
There is no sign, in this iteration,
of manna,
of harps,
of milk and honey.

Elsewhere, through time and
Mandelbrot spirals,
a grandson recognises and 
accepts the greatness,
the strength, the determination,
the intelligence
of this good man,
and continues to think,
and to question.
Always.

The Shades of Autumns Past

Down where Wilfred’s store stood
you can almost hear political arguments
in voices, distinct and beloved,
while pipe and tobacco smoke swirled
above a wood stove surrounded by nail kegs,
and a few sparse chairs.
Further down the lane,
where Gammon’s once stood,
the sharp smell of handline,
and essence of John Leckie boots
hangs in the salty air.

The dim shadows of fishermen’s stores
populate a cove, where even the stones
that supported their handmade wharves 
have disappeared into the relentless, 
and unforgiving, maw of time.
The memory of the lobster plant,
and the bustling fish plant,
offer olfactory hallucinations,
with the sharp smell of hot creosote
steeping nets, enhancing spectral vision.
You can almost see a cove full of small boats,
a palette of bright colour, with swaying spars,
and names like “Miss Glace Bay”, “Valma C”,
and “On Time 3".

Out between the islands, the Groaner calls,
and the shimmer of returning sails
causes a flurry of activity in kitchens
ruled by strong women, to whom hardship
was simply a way of life.
Remembered clotheslines flutter with colour,
each matron having her own distinct hanging pattern.
A small boy rows across a cove that has hosted
his past kindred for almost two hundred years.
A little girl in a cotton dress talks to the postmistress,
then runs with her granny’s mail
to receive her promised molasses cookie.

The man doesn’t see the ruins of old houses,
nor the place where the schoolhouse stood,
he is remembering Roll’s Garage, and Warnie’s,
the What-Not Shop, and Beulah’s Ice Cream shed.
He recalls distinct intonations of voices:
Wal, John Angus, Morris, Jim, Victor,
grandfathers George and Winfield,
grandmothers Lottie and Lily,
Marion and Lilian, Nora, and Aunt Maude,
and so many others fill his head with a cacophony
of love, and of kinship, and of hard times shared.
He smiles a bit, remembering the calloused hand
of his father, as it enveloped his smaller boy-hand,
as together they walked homeward past the Hall,
towards a very different future.

Hillside

The scrub spruce have grown tall
around the small country cemetery:
the sight of Schoolhouse Cove and Harbour Island
now obscured by persistent growth,
and time.

Lichens encroach upon marble and granite
histories that, although brief of detail,
encapsulate lives that were full
of tragedy, of love, of experience,
of life.

Part of my history is buried here,
brushed by salt sea air,
with the scent of spruce, and alders,
offering impartial benediction to both hero
and rogue.

The dates on the markers are brief spans
that fail to capture the intensity, the joy, 
the personalities of those they describe;
the persistent arrow of time offers
final punctuation.

Although the sense of loss is strong,
the feeling of love, of belonging is greater.
I walk slowly away, into a freshening autumn breeze,
proud of the genetic gifts I carry, that remind me
who I am.

On Intellectual Expedience

We turn our faces away, time and again,

at media images of death, hate, and pain.

Overwhelmed, problem resolution beyond our reach,

our logical core screams an existential screech.

Wahhabism, ISIS, the KKK,

the faces of evil we encounter each day:

corrupt politicians, and their corporate masters,

serial killers, ecological disasters.

Too many people breeding so fast,

an unsustainable planet that just won’t last.

So many realities calling me, me, and me,

so many eyes that refuse to see.

Every tribe seeking to advance their view,

with ethics and religions that exclude me and you:

in a feedback loop of stupidity so profound,

that altruism, acceptance and love cannot abound.

We bury our heads, like the ostrich adage,

in the sand of confusion, and ignore the carnage.

Intellectual expendience, driven by fear

of a truth, a reality we don’t want to hear.

Well, here’s a thought that you might not have heard:

pretend the Enlightenment never occurred!

Let’s implement the vision that we all can see,

of a new inclusive world, unafraid and free!

The Demise of the Golden Rule

It is not the concept of tolerance,
for it is a most worthy quality,
but the use and distribution thereof
that disturbs me.

How is it, then, that screams of “intolerance”
emanate most stridently
from those who preach uniformity
of beliefs?

Population grows, and jobs relocate;
economic migration, refugees and the dispossessed,
seek to better their lives
and we complain.

We are threatened by our insecurities,
incensed by the politics of fear,
and embarrassed by empathy,
which is hovering near extinction.

We have all become the “me” generation,
and seek only our betterment,
while refusing to see that can only be
a societal endeavour, to benefit all.

A drone collective, we moan in concert,
each movement controlled, orchestrated
by choirmasters who have no skill,
nor interest in the tune, or the chorus.

It is not the concept of tolerance,
for it is a most worthy quality,
but the increasing rarity of it
that saddens me, for us all.

Living in Almost

Helpless, overwhelmed,
you watch the tsunami build
on a horizon dark and chaotic.
The sky is obscured by storm clouds,
pregnant with violence.

Light leaks from a landscape
drained of colour and life:
sound echoes ominously,
dull, threatening, metallic:
engulfed by the cacophony of your mind.

The vortex is here:
you have circled long around the edge,
but now the blackness calls
and you feel yourself slipping,
without strength, without hope.

Your mind races, tired, confused,
as you search for the key,
the lifeboat that will ride the tempest,
and sustain you until a brightening dawn:
you can almost reach its safety...almost.

Deconstructing Perspective

Pristine,
sharp and heady,
the air from his
mountaintop,
reset his parameters
by removing them.

His vista
was complete,
and stretched
to forever.
Everything he could see
melded together
into a cohesive
living unity,
the sense of commonality
electrifying the thin mountain air.

Memories sang
and screamed,
bludgeoned and caressed,
whimpered and rejoiced:
phantoms,
chimeras,
all denizens of these lower
darker levels.

Failing light,
dampness, noise,
and an overwhelming sense of
alone:
abject exhaustion:
the dark call
of sleep.

Pristine,
sharp and heady,
the air from his
mountaintop,
reset his parameters
by removing them.

On Leaving The Tribe

Collectivism
is comfortable:
you know you belong,
and what to think,
never mind
the Ayn Rand connection.

The first fracture
was actually a schism:
I could not accept
the tribal god.
Social benefits
for the weak,
incapacitated,
needy;
universal healthcare;
abortion;
assisted dying;
secular government;
weapons control;
the list of differences
between my thought
and tribe-thought
continued to grow
exponentially.

I am alone now,
not surrounded,
and frustrated,
by people and ideas
that I cannot respect,
nor understand.

I am content now,
meeting likeminded people
in the most unusual of places,
realising that tribe-think
is retrogressive socially
and developmentally.

With personal horizons broad enough
one has the vision
of a small blue planet
floating peacefully
through the cosmos:
one journey,
one species,
one destiny,
one tribe,
together.

The Deleterious Effect of Routine on Aging

Stick to a routine,
they tell me:
it is important to keep
regular.
But why?  I respond.
Regular is boring;
regular is deteriorating;
regular numbs the mind.
What about the marvel
of serendipity,
the magical chaotic carpet
that has brought me
here, now, content?

You must focus,
they chant:
it will help
remembering things.
I already remember,
I scream:
why must I change
who I am
simply to become an older,
and less capable,
copy of a former me?

But you are older now,
they repeat,
and have to take care
of yourself.
They will repeat some old adage
or other,
designed to show me
the encapsulated wisdom
of the ages.
I laugh aloud,
and alarm the dog,
and do a little soft-shoe,
sip some fresh ground
Fair Trade coffee.

Then, abandoning all advice;
not caring for routine,
or focus,
I write this poem,
and continue to age,
but as me,
not a frail but organised,
focussed but bored,
copy of this
one and only
original
me.

On The Dangers Of Multi-tasking

On the very first page
of the instruction booklet,
“How to Properly View Reality”,
it is quite clearly stated,
“Focus.”

In physics,
the “double slit experiment”
permits viewing of
light and matter
as both waves
and particles.

In multi-tasking,
as focus
is divided,
one is never
sure,
from a physics
point of view,
if what you are treating as a wave
is, in fact,
a particle.

When uncertainty rules
your complementary variables,
at least
your principles
remain.

On Becoming Something Quite Different

It doesn’t have to be
a quantum change,
or monumental at all,
to shift to strange;
to stand in
bewildered wonder
at a reality
too different,
too alien,
too welcoming
to be comprehended
at all.

It can be a little thing,
a “yes”, or a “no”,
a left turn
that should have been
right.

(refrain)
And you won’t understand,
you can’t even know,
the madness that now stands before you.
And you won’t understand,
you can’t even know,
until it’s too late,
and you do.

Reality Check

Everything we see is filtered through
the lens of self.
All we learn is distilled
by conditioning:
familial, cultural, commercial,
and religious.

My truth is your blasphemy:
your dogma, to others, insanity.
The rules by which we live
apply only in our individual
egocentric interpretations.

We walk through life
unaware of the strangeness,
the fantasy,
the terror,
the sociopathic pulse
that throbs unseen
beneath the surface
of what we all know
as our lives.

We are tribal:
our religions, cultures, philosophies,
are created to make each tribe special,
non-inclusive and xenophobic,
wary of others
until they conform.

We are groups in search of common vision,
and, until that vision emerges
societal progress will stagnate,
or continue towards restoring
the archaic past,
glorified by holy books
and autocratic godspeakers.

The time has come to abandon the fantasies
from the childhood of our species,
and embrace progress and a greater good for all.
It is time for inclusiveness,
equality, and a commonality of purpose
that will define us as humanity,
and carry us forward to a brighter tomorrow
in a shared reality
that all can see.

The Falling of a Leaf (Reality Check series)

Autumn,
and photosynthesis
decrees
a period of winter dreaming.
The tree slows,
living on stored food,
and little energy.

The leaves,
released from factory duties,
celebrate
with colourful display:
a tribute to summers past.
They fall.  They become one
with the earth
from whence they came.

The fallen leaves
did not develop
myths and fables
of a Father Tree
that created all.
They have no expectation
of a leaf reunion
on the Great Oak In The Sky.

They live.
They perform their tasks.
They celebrate their completion.
They fall.
Their elements become
part of all that was,
all that is,
and all that will follow.

Their lives are fruitful:
they grow;
they work;
they age;
they fall.
The universe does not destroy:
it transforms.

May we learn from leaves.
May our autumns blaze with colour.
May our transformation be joyous.

On Successfully Traversing the Gaps Between Realities

Consider, then:
being,
being you
being you in the vast chiaroscuro
that is
your reality. Created
by you,
for you.


Imagine, now:
the trauma
the carnage
the devastation
that,
time and again,
slams
all of us
to a stunningly
different
place.


Remember, fondly:
the serendipity
by which you live,
waltzing
through life-changing
events,
creating,
participating
in the wonder.
,

Consider: when
acceptance
becomes the vehicle
of change,
what
will
reality
bring?


~James D. Fanning, 05Aug2015