Fog

War,
Populations silence,
Warriors win,
Populations struggle,
Questions,
No answers,
Less information,
As secrecy codes expand,
At this moment
Paratroopers land,
Questions,
Can war really go as planned? Can it?
Answers,
None;
Just smoke and mirrors,
CNN,
A better street magician,
Than Davids Blaine and Copperfield combined,
CBS, NBC, CBC and ABC no better,
Smoke and mirrors,
Except that eventually smoke clears,
And mirrors break,
Seven years bad luck,
No answers,
Fog of war!

SDM

Celebrate Love... Today

Today I celebrate love,
which means I celebrate you,
from the tips of your sun kissed multi shaded hair
to the chill curled toes at the end of those long and inviting legs of yours.
Today, I rejoice in the grandeur that is this love,
revealed to me in silent volumes each day on this path that we have chosen.
Today, I stand witness to the incredible power that love has to improve the human condition, to touch the deepest regions of the human spirit,
to embrace it,
making fantastic the everyday, everyday.
Today I celebrate you as every other day,
for the incredible mind blowing, spirit enhancing and soul empowered woman that you are.
I celebrate the rareness of your being,
complete, with all the talents, skills and beauty that you share with the world everyday: Passionate.
Today I celebrate love which means I celebrate life in all its rich complexities.
The vibrancy of life renewed,
no invigorated,
by the great pleasure and privilege of knowing love as I do.
Love, Charmaine, Love,
the same for me, your name and love –
synonymous as each day you live love,
sharing it with all you encounter,
so yes,
today I celebrate love,
with you!

SDM

Irony

Struck by the irony of sitting in a rail yard
while half a world away many national populations are hunkered down,
some with gas masks,
some with prayer.
Under these lights I can imagine the extreme discomfort of those people,
while all around me people complain of the temperature,
or the rain,
or their clothes
or lack of food,
it is strangely unsettling how relativity changes perception
as people seem too obtusely go through the motions
oblivious to the horror in someone else’s backyard.
Back though to the point, sitting here, in the oil stench filled room,
I know blood is being shed so this aroma will not subside,
at least until all the dinosaur bones have dried –
Fossil fuels for fossil fools,
tonight I pray for the world.

SDM

Hippo Crite

I’m now witnessing the rhetoric of a supposed spiritual leader: Pat Robertson is lecturing his audience of the 700 Club as to the appropriateness of French involvement in post war Iraq. From upon high his spiritual throne he uses words like outrage to define any potential French involvement in any reconstruction or Oil contracts. The separation of church and state seems beyond the reaches of a corporate televangelist. Hypocrite. Do you think that God is outraged by France, or is that Freedom, has the official name change taken place? I am blown away by his (Robertson’s) moral authority used in this way – Furthermore, as he stands in front of Operation Prayer Shield, a clever bulletin board of pictures of soldiers deployed overseas with weapons – Is this what we have come to? Church and state, propaganda machines at least on the 700 Club it seems.

Shame!

SDM

Demonstration

I feel the wrath of remorse,
That there was nothing I could do,
Like 99.9999% of the world,
I was an observer,
As democracy,
Became demonstration of might and will,
The Coalition of the Willing,
Now billing,
US!

When is enough enough,
Capitalisms answer,
Never,
Communists,
When they say so,
Lost in ideological boundaries,
Created by a very powerful few,
Those willing to sacrifice,
Principle for results,
Maybe history will show me the fool,
Maybe it will show me right,
Yet,
In this moment,
I’m lost in confusion,
Muddled thoughts of the annals of time,
And I feel red in the face,
As I take my place as a man,
Curious about our collective fate,
If and when we ever wake up,
If and when,
How and why,
Ask yourself!

SDM

KIA

The newswoman speaks of today’s reports with a matter of factness that seems to suggest absolute awareness. Yet I wonder if the talking head can decipher the truth of our current state through the supposed objective reporting she duteously relays. I wonder if her mind, like mine, draws the obvious parallels between a suicide bombing report with five American soldiers dying in Iraq and the guerilla tactics which so ravaged the American war machine in full splendor in Vietnam. Obvious! Yet, how many are willing and able to draw that conclusion? At the beginning of Gulf War II, as is common of our western world, our arrogance, save that, the arrogance of the Coalition of the Willing, caused widespread belief that this war was going to be a cake walk. That all Iraqi’s would just roll over and play dead –

Tell that to the families of the roughly 55 killed in action this week.

SDM

Update Since I wrote this more than 3100 more soldiers have died and approximately 100 - 150,000 Iraqi's.

Aware

As humans,
At times we usurp ideas or symbols,
To create a specific expression,
Such was the case,
With Hitler,
And the NSDAP,
The Nazis took a symbol,
The Swastika,
And perverted its meaning,
Creating fear and unrest,
At its very sight,
As humans,
It is our duty,
To be aware,
Always!

SDM

Silenced Screams

I can close my eyes and feel the shattering of glass,
hearing each individual shard hit the ground wondering if a child’s foot will run over it bare.
I can see the tattered wood and brick of a city under siege with massive machines of death, the B – 52 raining down tones of destruction.
I can smell the rancid odor of wells on fire,
choking the environment so that maybe a madman can hang on for even one more minute.
I can hear the screams silenced, of a people who for twenty years have lived under the scourge of tyranny,
fantastically rich as a nation,
but spiritually raped by the long years of an unopposed dictator –
Unopposed for fear of death.
I close my eyes and feel my spirit torn by the wholesale misery and sadness of this step, which should have been taken in 1991 –
Cut the head of the snake,
kill those that you must,
But no more,
so that renewal can begin.

SDM

Do I Love you...

Do I love you –
Oh yes and how –
Brought to you as led by my North Star –
The Lord above so ask not do I love you but instead how much
and for you my shinning star I convey this emotion through a touch of devotion
designed to instill joy,
happiness and love as guided by concentrated light.
No need to refuse or shy away for you will be lifted up today as right you should,
the colours of the rainbow found beaming in the smile of a princess
who for so long I’d been dreaming –
Then to realize my every day – I
n your arms, where there is no harm in trying, as so often you have shown me.
While with the force of your will you have blown me, to the ends of the earth and back again – But unlike Columbus you trained this heathen savage to respond to love not hate as these words demonstrate…

Do I love you –
And how,
as a Leprechaun the rainbow,
who needs Gold when I have the real value of your smile,
a hundred times the value of all Fort Knox,
nurturing more life than all the Nile,
for you so clearly are the cradle of my civilization,
the Tigris to my Euphrates,
from you flows all knowledge and understanding –
For you are woman and I hear you roar –
feeling quite distinctly your thoughts, seeing them as clearly as the sun –

Do I love you?
Did Billie sing the blues?
Did Ella skat?
Was Gillespie Dizzy as Parker was a Byrd?
Did Picasso paint? Einstein ride imaginary stars? Are there four queens in a standard deck of cards?

Do I love you?
Is the sky blue?
Are we getting older?
Isn’t it a fact in winter its colder?
Does the dun shine and the moon glow?
Are there things in this world we’ll never know?

Did Descartes think, did Ali fight, did the Grinch steal Christmas, did Ali Babba have 40 nights? Are there Kings and Queens and President and Prime Ministers,

Then as you come out from this audition, I guess you have your answer…

Yes,

I love YOU!

SDM

Balance

Do I fairly balance my perceptions of the worlds iniquity with its spectacular beauty and wonder?
Am I balanced in my examination through words of this vast planet and its six billion inhabitants?
Do I sound TOO negative or critical? Or, can you see my struggle to bring you both?
Do I put TOO much stock, hope, in humanity?
In our ability to change the course we’re on?
Do you think the wordy song I sing has already been sung?
Can you feel the pain I have inside, in knowing that I continue to try yet inside these pages my pained song hides?
Do you sense the world different today as you hear the children laugh and play?
What do you think?

SDM

Contemplating Einstein

Contemplating more than just the ambient noise that fills my ears at every turn,
aware of something much larger than myself –
In the pursuit of knowledge, hoping to unlock some internal secret that might –
well, I’m not sure!
Still, looking at Einstein,
I’m caught by the fascination which so clearly pushed him forward;
Thirsty, hungry, not concerned with appearance,
for appearance is fleeting,
it was fact he longed for –
the fact that God had stimulated him to believe had to exist –
but in the absence of that fact he composed theory –
an interesting anomaly as until disproven it stands correct,
scientific principle as God inspired theoretical fact,
Contemplating something more, I wonder –

Where’s my beam of light?
(she knows)

SDM

Progress Concerns Me Thus...

Progress concerns me at this moment.
Or, rather,
the well crafted, professionally developed and sold notion of progress
that we in the industrialized world buy in single serving packages
of Duracell batteries, coca cola, Sony and cigarettes.
We buy, hook, line and sinker
like bottom feeders most things and ideas
that our champions of politics and industry sell us
paying little mind to the consequences of our actions.
Or to those adversely affected by our conspicuous assumption.
McDonalds doesn’t tell us when we order our Big Mac that someone,
somewhere is starving because of our need or desire to have a couple of beef patties
or some crispy chicken.
We’re oblivious while sipping on our coke,
water with some syrup in it that elsewhere people would fight to the death for water.
Madison Avenue,
Bay and Fleet streets don’t want us to live in reality,
they’d prefer us to buy, and we do, the picture book life,
THEY sell us.
What is progress?
It is often said that a team is only as strong as its weakest member.
So, we then are exceptionally weak.
What good is progress if we are leaving so many behind?
What good is progress if it is blind?
Will it change?
Will we change?
Only if You and I demand it –
But we don’t because we are too busy watching quote, reality TV.
Our progress is just as real as the reality shows we watch –
crafted to stupefy and placate.

SDM

31

Who are you,
And where did you come from,
Never mind,
I’m grateful that you are here,
So then,
What are you thinking right now?
Don’t put up the road block;
Answer the questions you don’t want to ask,
None of us do,
How did we come to know each other?
Surprise,
How does it feel?
Does it have a taste;
A specific colour,
Perhaps a sound,
What is it that you see,
How does it feel to know love,
Not just understand it, but truly
KNOW…
The way your skin feels,
The smell of your hair,
Incredible tasting lips,
The sweet resonance of your voice,
The way your smile at 6 am with no sleep can still,
As the bard might say,
Ascend the brightest heaven of invention,
My love,
My one true love,
So very clear to me,
To you,
To all that see us,
Your greatest and lasting gift to me is my sober smile,
Genuine and true,
Inspired by you.
I was born to love you,
You and only you,
I have always loved you,
Knowing all the greatness there is in you,
I see it,
You,
My 31.

SDM

Hegemony

Do I see?
Do you?
Are we past the point of no return?
Does it really truly exist anymore –
The point of no return?
The question:
Why war?
That question must be answered absolutely and without fail.
We need not ask why peace as our survival instinct answers that one –
But why war?
So I can drive my S.U.V. or heat my home?
Why now?
Lots of questions that should be asked,
but aren’t!
I do not believe that we should appease,
as we’ve done before,
but what is it that we’re truly afraid of?
Saddam?
His weapons?
Would he wreak terror and destruction?
Or is he just trying to change the balance of power?
Is the United States practicing brinkmanship on this one –
Painting a picture,
of oil when in fact they’re afraid at the highest levels of something far more significant – like the erosion of hegemonic control…

Curious?

SDM

Dare

A human without a dream is like a car without gas,
nice to look at but not very much use.
Moreover, the dream itself is not enough,
it is the steady and studied pursuit of a dream that makes a mark on the human soul.
After all, a dream need not be logical as the mind might desire,
no, instead, a dream is the soul manifested in words,
at least in part.
Show me a human without a dream
and I will show you a human settling for the status quo.

Reach for the stars and the universe is yours,
reach for a blade of grass and the earth is all you will ever know.
Dare to dream!
Dare to pursue those dreams,
in so doing,
you will discover completely the full and wonderful life you deserve.
Dare to LIVE!

SDM

Sum

Cogito ergo sum –
Perhaps for some its this and nothing more
but where’s the validation of such thought?
Is it alone enough
or does that thought require that additional step –
the expression of that thought?
I write,
therefore I am
and I express all that I feel,
but then I’m left to beg the question
is all that I feel real?
Or do I record it merely to record?
Oh so many questions that Cogito ergo sum could not afford –
ME!
Thoughts are merely constructs that afford us internal dialogue
yet the external manifestation is where our thoughts become more tangible.
So is it merely enough to think?

Would the same be true for Monkeys or Dolphins?
Or do they lack self –

Could they not be aware of their existence?

Thought –
Fantastic, enough for Descartes, his validation –
writing is mine!

SDM

Networked Fear

Ominous –
Looming –
Impending War –
Are you frightened?

Has CNN
or NBC
or CBC
or BBC convinced you of the need to go to war –
To shatter a nation already in shambles –
Incidentally one of the wealthiest Oil nations in the world.
Did I mention with a leader (whom no one really chose except for the United States),
sounds eerily familiar,
especially to the people who elected Gore
and ended up with Bush.

We’re hearing about drones and no fly zones,
seeing controlled and contrived images
as approved by the very real censors of Iraqi’s,
just like you or I digging trenches outside their homes,
on their streets –
Can you imagine that?

And I don’t mean city workers –
I mean can you imagine digging a trench in Toronto,
Ottawa or
Montreal,
New York,
Los Angeles or
Washington.

Trenches!
We’re hearing again,
about blanket bombers from another war –
Sorry conflict, not so long ago –

What do you think the Vietnamese are thinking of the B – 52’s active use again?
We’re hearing of B2B’s and I don’t mean business to business –
F – 117’s, Apaches and lest we forget batteries of Patriots –
Untold (literally untold for the cost of War is never as neat as Balance Sheets and Profit Loss statements)
Billions will be spent fighting to depose one man –
One man and a few of his cronies, is anyone else afraid,
what happens when the dog scratches –
your bound to come up with fleas –
Believe me – No amount of duct tape is going to keep a determined flea out!

These are but a few thoughts on a senseless war which could be but one mans blood –

SDM

Dreams

In pursuing our dreams there are many that will stand in our way.
Simply another obstacle to pass through as we chronicle through this life.
It is at these times, when opposed, that we must recognize and utilize support systems we have in place to overcome the challenge (s).
Through love’s guidance, the heart and soul of our relationship,
doubtless we will emerge triumphant –
having defined success on our own, understanding that the pursuit of our dream
is every bit as important and positive as the dream itself.
Each day, with love in our hearts and minds we take one step closer to the pinnacle,
one step closer to God, in trying to fulfill our passions desire –
You, one, strong, courageous, enthusiastic and bounding,
reach deep with in, find your battle cry and respond to your detractors –
Personal success is defined by you
despite obvious attempts by others to “help” you –
Where do you want to go today?
And, how may I help?

SDM

PS. I'd like to welcome my Stepfather and Mother back to Canada after a year in Malawi. They will be here for a month or so and then back again. I'm proud of them for what they are trying to accomplish together. WELCOME HOME!

Change Regime

Like school children,
literally,
grown men and women,
sitting in their seat of power,
passing their circle circle dot dot –
Have you got your small pox shot?
The pressing matter under the well appointed dome,
rather than an impending war or soldiers of your own nation who will surely die at your whim, Oh those damn French at it again –
Chirac and Veto –
Why not just throw a Parade for Saddam –
But this is not the issue today, we leave the Veto for another play –
Yet once, at a time in a different place a French man told us;
The pen is mightier than the sword to which I do agree, so following on Voltaire’s great thought the power and imagery of words is plain to see.

At the seat of power,
Democrat and Republican alike are preparing for an intervention –
Regime change –
to ease Iraqi’s plight –
So with power mighty,
not just on a whim what is the importance –
Where did this tale begin –
Words.

Under the dome,
the political elite are clamoring at the gates trying to ward off democracies defeat –
What is it their concerned with:
The names of food they’ll eat.
Not death,
not discomfort
nor even regime change on the plate.
This week is the changing of foods name –
Rather than French Fires or Toast
reminiscent of ages past the new propaganda is Fries of Freedom as well as Toast –
Oh sure of this CNN does boast –
Well, while their at it,
concerning themselves with issues so severe I’m truly curious to see,
can anybody tell me will kissing now too be free?

SDM

Duped

I’m distracted today, my mind running in two different directions –
very different in fact,
polar opposites,
so incredible as I struggle with the inner turmoil
attached to the stumbling almost stuttering display of love,
as so clearly I do,
she stands before me,
witty,
intelligent,
chalk full of wisdom,
loving and beautiful,
oh so beautiful
as to have your incredible beauty betrayed
by a lack of appropriate words to describe your inherently and wonderful;
elegance and grace –
You see –

Stuttering and stumbling.
So of course,
I have this cherubic appeal running through my mind –
Conversely:

Shatter!

My mind intrigued is adversely affected by what is currently happening –

Lies, everywhere!
Blatant lies,
full of the spirit of capitalism,
the true spirit;
Create the consumer,
determine the worth,
fight for the market share,
Ah the beauty of choice.

I remember 12 years ago this month,
sitting in a restaurant writing about the same fate I write of now,
an impending war; and for what,
so that Jed Clampett and his like can have a new home in Beverly Hills.
And the majority in sitting back and doing nothing to prevent a war
so obviously about the new imperialism –
the economics of Sport Utility Vehicles and presidential palaces
show just how hill billy we all really are;

Duped!
Don’t forget that the White House is a Presidential Palace as well!

SDM