Lured by the siren voices of human aggrandizement,
The hedonistic, headlong pursuit of material satisfaction.
By the few who seek wealth and power
On a scale undreamed of
By the Caesars and Pharaohs
Or even by the lofty, pampered Imperialists
Of the heady nineteenth century.

Ignored, are the vast stinking, majority,
The teeming poor who sink deeper
Into the morass of hunger and wretchedness.
In circumstances of inescapable horror
Which breed hopelessness
And the smouldering hatred
Of lasting resentment and fear

A world of vast inequality.
Marshaled by the incorrigibly rich
In order to sate their selfish and aggressive
Lust for more.
An ideological evil
Which grips the lost and deprived
With the extinction of hope
And the rage to exact…a retribution.

Then there is the deterioration
Of international leadership,
The willingness or inability
Of world powers to control
Excess or anarchy within or without
Their borders…
Even whilst circling each other
With monstrous weaponry
And an engulfing, growing,
Antagonism of distrust.

America is in retreat to it’s fortress shores.
Europe is leaderless, timid and uncontactable.
Russia, near bankrupt, snarling aggression
And clawing back a buffer of unwilling former satellites.
Eurasia and the Middle East seething
With religious and racial warfare.
Africa in the throes of losing control
Of a world threatening Ebola pandemic.
China clawing it’s way forward
To global economic and military dominance.

A world without referees or rules
Where antagonistic giants force
The un-powerful to adopt
An  ultimatum of “either them or us”.
Where the threat of terrorism transcends borders every day,
Where genocidal practices and weapons of mass destruction,
Computer global anarchy and environmental depredation
Illustrate the growing volatility
Of a deteriorating world order.

There is a Paralysis of Will in mankind.
Anthropology, psychology and physiology
Recognise only one single human species.
But that species is impossibly fractionated….
By an entrenched pattern of conflict,
An inability to compromise,
A refusal to disperse wealth for the common good,
Global racial and religious disharmony and animosity
And a fundamental refusal to communicate
Proactively …at all.

The consequences of tolerating
And furthering this Paralysis of Will,
Shall lead mankind to an apocalypse.
The consequences of which,
Are just too terrible to contemplate.

Somehow we should, as one,
Engender… a common aspiration,
With a level of universal commitment,
To induce an attitude, a consciousness
Of great and abiding…
World Citizenship.

Realistic? …No!
Likely? …No!
Do you give it a snowballs chance in Hell? …Not this week!

Why?... The frailty of Human Nature!

M.
From just about as far away from everything as you can, thankfully, possibly get….
NEW ZEALAND.
20 September 2014

As a child I did not know whether it was the act itself or the knowledge that I was the receptacle for malevolence and cruelty that made me so vulnerable. At first I thought it was God's punishment for something I had done. I took an inventory, desperately seeking the deed that triggered the retribution. But I could not identify a single act. Even my accumulated errors, transgressions and unkindness’s did not exact the cost. Then I understood: if I could not isolate a deed, or pattern of deeds, commanding the punishment, it must be me. It is not what I did. It is who I was...a fundamentally, intrinsically and irredeemably bad little girl. I negotiated my adolescence and early adulthood with the mathematical symbol for "less than" (<) attached.

I would like to be able to write that I am no longer negotiating my adulthood with the same mathematical symbol attached. But that would be a lie. It is pervasive. It is formidable. And if I do not keep it contained, I am so afraid it will be debilitating….I've been down that road a time or two. At times it has enveloped me, penetrating my pores and drowning everything essential and vital inside.

Undisturbed, it is docile, sated. But aroused by even the slightest hint of beauty or strength or grace it is a painful reminder that I am...somehow...contemptible...that I am still fundamentally, intrinsically and incorrigibly...what? Flawed, imperfect & bad? You may say, "But we are all flawed and imperfect. And our flaws and imperfections make us more interesting...more truly beautiful...more human." And perhaps you are right, but this inexorable deprivation makes me somehow subhuman... less than human...permanently broken. I am a receptacle for malice.

I skillfully deflect praise directed my way, an effort to soothe the inescapable conflict inside. Moderate praise induces a subtle twinge of embarrassment; more effusive praise incites the consuming and agonizing feeling that I am irreparably damaged, hopelessly broken. It has contaminated, compromised and diminished every accomplishment, soiled every success. People sometimes tell me that I am humble and that it is an admirable trait. But the modesty and humility they identify helps me to mask the mortification stirring inside. I have gotten so good at hiding it from others that I have nearly learned to conceal it even from myself.

At least that is what it feels like...right now.

Snow (January 1935) - Poem by Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.


Louis Macneice..

Less mindful of being opinionated,
But defiance is rebellion,
Perfect with young and spirited,
Discouraged by the incorrigibly stubborn.

Every minute 

I move forward
and backward 

Feel elated and dejected 

At the same time

From both ends of the world

I retrograde 

Explicitly consign into oblivion

Those marred thoughts 

I introspect 

And question 

My beliefs and it’s pros and cons 

Then backward 

I run counter to 

Those thoughts 

I agree to it 

And purport to be satiated 

There’s a lapse of time 

And I’m forgotten 

Or maybe I forget 

I run 
Here and there 

Incorrigibly perfect 

Like those fake palindromes 

Among those assertive 

Words.

1
whether the weather has changed
or whether the weather is just the same
whether you are a weather skeptic
or a weather septic, or doomsday climatologist –
horribly or incorrigibly either way –
the weather has its field day, and ocean day
either way, trumping all our noses
whatever our beliefs
each day

2
Just a matter of routine
the other day,
all in a day’s work -
roar and boom! went the earthquake
over the city, and everything was rubble –
well, what could be worse than that?
swoosh and **** next it sounded
we had a tsunami coming over –
"Hey, we’re just being helpful," said the deluge
"We’re just washing everything away"

Just a matter of routine the other day
all in a day’s work
Said the hurricane to the coconut trees
along glossy Eden’s shores:
"Hold on to your nuts, you tall fellas -
this is no ordinary ******* you’re gonna get!"
And far out at sea
where Noah might have gone
where ocean meets ocean,
one ocean waved to the other
and beat his chest:
"Did you sea what I just did?"
And irriatted with the silence
it said: “I’m sure you did, beach!"

Just a matter of routine the other day
all in a day’s work

On the cloudy moon of
maroon ebb
I think about you
I think about all green
branches of unruly tree
that fails to stand still in
hope and unexplainable despair.'

Like the half eaten moon,
like the oozing blood of skin peeled lips,
my mind stagger on you,
on how to describe you.
And then you
come unannounced with
withered broken words and
nascent nervous grin.
(How can I describe you?)
Thick lips and eyes that
have ship like mystery. Yet dark halo
that surrounds your eyes are not
mysterious rather open
childish and blunt, just
like the love poem you
gave me once with quivering hands.

I love your hands
and how
they balance your
dangling silver chain watch
as it incorrigibly goes
south east and west.

On some nights, with
absolute pangs of naked flesh
when I detest
my own existence I see
you floating around me like
a fly,
humming
in your own noisy, boisterous sounds
lapping, overlapping on
my urgency to understand love
life and death. I ask questions
and you give answers of an active fool. I
who had have, once, travelled
door to door begging for answers
get tired, mad and stupidly excited on
the fecundity and confidence of your style.

You say, you love me
I say, *******.
How can I explain that
I am a mad jester
and God, Soul and Earth
guides me to madness
I see myself on a sea
standing on a wooden plank
gazing stars as
my dearest Cynthia
christens me and ignites
the madness in me.

Just like you meditate
my madness sedates me
into rolling pumpkin. At times
there is only sand in me
that slips, dissolves
and detests containment.
I burn at days and
on a very very jet black night
flicker like cigarette sparks.

I am thick as smoke
and I evaporates like roman candles
in the form of long veil of
frankincense that has driven
civilizations crazy. I know
my wits have burned in Byzantium
and in Arabia, between prosperity
and blood of gold quest
I have lingered in the veils
of blue- green eye
Arab women when they
inhale and exhale
vapour of dry sun and ‘itar’
of their heterogamous Arab Lord.

While I was riding on my
******* camel I have seen you, once,
crossing Nile with your entourage
of semi naked women
on your way to Medina. Later,
a century later, I realized how you
had have been fallen in love
with me and with others
of dark skin and oval large eyes

Once under shadow of an
imported willow tree
you have sworn on mountains
that there are temples,
in a holy land where Ganges streams,
which you made just for me.
On hearing this I called upon
Queens and Kings of salty ice kingdoms
and went on war on / with you. This war
lasted for twenty seven days
and forty seven nights. We fought
on planets, on stars, on clouds, on sands
on sea, on lands and
on nothing. I teased your wings
you teased my sail ,
until, one day
you woke me up from my office slumber
and just like this and that
we sat across each other
talking about monk and monkeys in a
smelly, ill-coloured cafeteria.

By M

As I look out of the window
My head laid back against the cushion
Of my side lower berth
My eyes open wider and wider
As they gaze upon the surroundings
The trees, the bushes, the greenery
The mountains, the tunnels, the bridges
The surrounding railway lines, the crossing trains
It is a vivid, and most enchanting dream
However, all good things come to an end
All of a sudden, I am ****** back to reality
As I feel a tingling sensation
I swing around in alarm
And see a creepy little cockroach
Scuttle across the seat
Evidently having made its home here
As I angrily brush the insect aside
I keep my fingers crossed
Hoping against hope
That this is the exception to the rule
After all, hope springs eternal
However, as always, Murphy's law strikes
The little devil is soon followed
By its brother, sister, father and mother
As a family of these incorrigibly evil pests
Unleash a reign of terror
Such that, even the most diehard railfans
Vow never to seet foot in an Indian train again
Especially in a non-AC coach
Frankly, this is the last straw
That broke the hapless camel's back
Dear Railway Minister
You may introduce bullet trains
You may electrify the entire network
You may connect India with China
But, unless and until the day arrives
When we can travel in a clean train
Without the numbing and overpowering fear
Of these evil pests and rodents
Your words mean as much to us
As grass to a lion or tiger

oh, what would i not do
to relive our first kiss
and that uncomfortable unfamiliarity
of seeing your face properly
for the first time.
that night of our first snow,
when every flake was a spoken word
and every move, so incorrigibly impetuous.

You're the dealer
Who stole my possessions
You stood behind that red cupboard
And basked in your glory
You injected the venom
With a slight grin on your face
Purporting to be a master of your words
Incorrigibly lying beneath the rock
You're afraid of being revealed
Your alibi is kept track of
With smoke curling round the corner of your sleeves
Blood dripping down those poisoned ivy vines
You're hiding beneath the tunnel
Making your voice seem approachable
Trying to wind those other people
Into your farcical world
You're presumably sagacious but
You're corrupt.

There is something about you that attracts me,

The way you roll with life, how you just let the moments pass

Your  u n r u f f  l e d  soul
Calms my incorrigibly fractious mind.

It’s appealing to me how handsome you are
And you are oblivious to such an entity


And how

You effortlessly allure me with your personality.

There is something about you that makes me

Want to open up my heart,


again.

HAVING MISTAKEN YOU PERHAPS FOR YESTERDAY?

"Am I supposed to be dying. . ?"

Death
that person from Porlock

answers
quietly ". . .yes."

"gently gently gentleness ...
...the dark was talking to the dead"

Louis I loved
your "drunkenness

of things being
various"

you so "incorrigibly plural"

with your rather curious
Englished Irishness.

Me when I was
the me of 12 and a day

walking 30 miles
home from Dublin

with the record
of your voice

clutched in my hand

not noticing the miles
"Time was away

...and somewhere else."

Someday soon. Someday.
Whether it tomorrow
or an arrived day found forgotten.
It is no matter, really
since all's a matter of time.
Eventuality.
It'll become as the change became sprung.
Mentality. Focused - poised - neat
Formality. Deranged - losing - sleep
Obnoxious they'll be- prior incorrigibly
Looking lustfully at all w/out contempt.
Seeing life as new from out of hiding & wet.
Charmed by rolled nickels and dimes
How they're spent -or
Lost in the mouth of the girl's words
Alluring her scent.
Attracted to scenes that went amiss/past the fray.
Attractive to those who don't know as they say.

By Jennifersoter Ezewi

Staggering onward to an
assumed route in other to
arrive home makes the drunk
feel special.

He asks the wind and land
the way forward.
Urinates at every given point
of liquor's command.

"Someone show me the way
home."
As he whistles and sings
incorrigibly.

"Oh!
This must be home.
Where is this foolish woman
who calls me a drunkard?"
Hic*
"I am home to make you happy."

"Foolish woman.
Do you know that I brought
you from your father's house
to bear my name?
Nonsense!"

"Although I pay my rent at the
bar doesn't make me a drunk...
I will send you packing and
marry a pulchritude that will
take care of me."

"Go! Go and bring my food.
That is the only thing you...
Oh I remember."

Teeters towards the door.
"Where is the crayfish
that tastes so good in my soup?
The bitter leaf that tastes so
sweet at the end of the day.
My Akpino.
The ugly beauty.
I am so pressed."

By acquisition of perfidiousness,
  superabundant equanimity serves as cynosure
for perspicacious circumlocution
  Extricated from acumen by coruscant conviviality
     prescient luminescence elicits magnanimous ebullience
   Profundity wrought the saxicolous
    Winebibber, penultimate in cupidity
    Unencumbered by concupiscence
   in which anomalistic accoutrements might unto be bequeathed
Alas, only by auspices, might idiosyncrasies be brought to be remunerative
As such, in trust, bellwether, to excogitate and make usufruct
is as to find parsimonious, what opulence incorrigibly writhes therein
By hedonistic primal instinct, chase, to what is callipygian