1. Men’s novels are about men. Women’s novels are about men too but from a different point of view. You can have a men’s novel with no women in it except possibly the landlady or the horse, but you can’t have a women’s novel with no men in it. Sometimes men put women in men’s novels but they leave out some of the parts: the heads, for instance, or the hands.

  O the inky viscosity   of soul-debauching night   *   It’s the Night of the Tarantula   in twilight masquerade   it’s the Trance of the Tarantula   in dance of death arrayed   *   The Vampire Bat is on the wing   hell’s foundations quake   sleep light lest ye are risen not   from its mortifying wake   *   For tonite the wailing wraiths entwine   and this must ye know   that guiltless blood   shall freely flow   like cataracts of wine   *   Frozen in a frieze of fright   there be no time for flight   the spirit is slow in siphoning   as flesh pales   by starry light   *   All’s awry earth’s full spun   the skies whirl in vain   all Creation keen astir   witness a world on the wane   *   Curtains drop on Vanities   prizes swing too high   ambitions lie all broke in breach   trampled in the rain   *   In inky viscosity the night is set to fall   trapt in dank debauchery   We’re Never to rise again   [© R.Kanth 2020/25]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>

  To live   one needs that vital spark that Iskra that makes us burst alive   ‘   Love of any kind is that fey and fulsome light failing which we full sore lean none too eager none too keen on dun ephemerals drink drugs dark debauch that blight our boorish unsanguine days O look not upon our wayward ways   *   The hurt they give us their balms erase on wounds we sought to assuage and so we fall in mordant desuetude unfit to stay or self-efface garnering pain whilst seeking good in molten ice and ragged rage the ink that will not cannot dry on wastrel life’s desultory page   *   The saddest words of tongue and pen in expense of reason and waste of rhyme the saddest thoughts we could ever own in wan cadence plaintive moan “I might have lived had I but known” as we think and think again in gutted grief and sodden pain I might have lived had I but known   [© R.Kanth 2025]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>

  Come won’t you be   my Valentine?   *   boon to the heart   blessing condign   melded of sweetness   in whisper of wine   *   bonded eternal   plighted in troth   vested in fealty   in gifting gratuitous   in forgiving repine   *   we who are sod   yet dare be sublime   predatory mammals   bare risen from slime   *   though grappled with griefs   in treasons of time   erasing foreclosures   of mine and thine   *   won’t you   yet won’t you   ageless in heart   insensate of mind   be my   be my own Valentine?   [© R.Kanth 2025]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>

  (for CLM)     O for a romp down Memory Lane where we drank sweet coke but took our coffee plain where ennui was about the only bane ‘ Where a shrink or a pill lulled every pain where Guilt was allowed even Shame was legit where failure we owned and to be sorry admit . Where to aim too high was never a dare and betrayal by one’s own only rarely a scare * O for a stroll down memory lane where we watched Hitchcock munched on candy cane where the air hung clear the Spirit flew high and the sun shone through why even in rain * But then It All changed and the needle swung wild rules were not rules to break them no stain . We passed all posts breached all due norms and history got morphed into legerdemain * O for a run back on memory lane doing it for fun not merely for gain . In intuitions archival dry reason disdain where if ignorance loomed large penitence was true and the line we drew sharp ‘twixt sane and insane . O for a slide down Memory Lane where love was just enough to writhe blissful in pain than gross sins of our kind cleft deep against the grain * O to let go of memory lane where what is lost is lost and to dotingly linger is hopelessly vain . And so to return to our own sordid time where the heart is hung heavy O so very heavy yes, the heart is hung heavy for the fever in the brain . [© R.Kanth 2020/25]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>

  ‘Fishes tipple in the deep birds wanton in the air’** they know not the wayward reckonings of dank regret or care   *   I go to where I should not go where not even angels dare asking for such indemnities of a wasted life I swear   *   It is a publind universe unjust grim and bare quelling the quaking babblings of weak and wan despair   *   It is a purblind universe unjust, grim, and bare   where every hope is a feckless dupe and every gift a snare   ** I’ve borrowed these two ethereal phrases from Richard Lovelace, circa C.E. 1642   [©R.Kanth, 2025]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>

  It’s a lovely moonlit night . eerie bats hang high in flight . in heaven’s hazy paling light . the world is tranquil like the night * Yet is spirit far from calm . penury wreaks a turbid harm . a hurt for which there is no balm . in cleft of sleepless poesy . springs a surging swirling storm * Far away the vestals weep . as famished children cry in sleep . and deadly odors fill the air . as hate arrides all naked bare * Far away the hubris sweeps . stirring sullen surly deeps . as perfect strangers kill and die . not really knowing reason why * Night wakes untimely here . as day still lies sleeping there . yet there’s no light anywhere . In primal force of warped will . in thrall driven to curse and kill . as night comes closing everywhere . and the fallen gasp for air * Extinction haunts the human fate . redemption may come far too late? . and when the fogs of fury clear . we may know what is or is not dear . why blood that spills rage that kills . is ancient as those wizened hills . sentinels of earth and sky . voyeurs that watch us kill and die . as in our dying primal screams . we wake from fevered fiery dreams . to the break of waking day . sweeping fogging mists away . to start again new vows at hand . pledged to save a ravished land * And so we ever cycle on . as many to die as will be born . in will helpless in fate forlorn * Yet in mordant irony . ‘tis still a lovelorn moonlit night</em> . let it not wake to morning blight . undiscerning wrong from right . uncaring be it dark or light . unmoved be it true or trite . unknowing be it flight or fight * In the all confounding ignorance . find a scintilla of sense   [©R.Kanth, 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism</em>  

  There are no honest wages for dun labors of the heart fey in flush of blood and tears no healing zephyrs start   *   There one must take the rap let hope for mercies go submit to the blanched pain watch the laden spirit flow   *   It’s the way with all flesh this surely must you know pining for love’s sweet requital we reap more than we could sow   *   And faltering in fading grace succumb to wound and woe   [©R.Kanth, 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, Expiations, and Farewell to Modernism  

  There is no Kingdom of the heart there the Plebes who reign   There’s no measure of its largesse be it of joy or pain   *   It dares only to remember it cares but not to forget   What’s too graven to embrace it laves in legerdemain   *   Never seeking to calculate audits both loss and gain   And never needing to cogitate showers the truth like rain   *   Beyond passions of love and hate strews Verities like rain   [© R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, and Expiations  

  (for Joan Robinson, who knew it all)   It’s the Age of Quantity the Economist rules the roost works so very ardently to give his phony arts a boost knows the Price of everything but Value not at all Capital’s choice handmaiden at his Master’s beck and call doughty prize-fighter apologist for hire earns his errant Nobel Prize preaching louder than the choir   *   Devil take the hindmost runs the dull refrain here there and everywhere spreads his Litany of Gain disdains with specious models all benevolence and care touting race to the fittest under rule of laissez faire   *   A set of shrewd assumptions self-limits what s/he finds sadly dupes the hoi polloi with dusty rusty minds masks nursery idiotics with equations and the like few daring to say to him ‘inveigler take a ____’   *   Quite ineffably less errant fool than knave to stand up to his wiles need be principled and brave ‘iron law of wages’ ‘law of population’ long tricked us one and all but his Age now is withering Writing’s on the Wall   *   We are Mutualist Communals reciprocal at heart a Pox on his rank corruptions and a Plague on his science and art [©R.Kanth 2023/24] Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

    This is the way the world tends This is the way the world rends not with a song but a simper as wild men swagger in murderous jaunt and the meek subside to whimper * The high potentates the big nation states brought us to this pass scorching the earth to penurious dearth morphing live flesh to grass * Mined pole to pole tainted fresh lakes whole the blight goes on and on till no life left the planet is reft and all that is good is gone and all that is good is gone * This is the way the world tends this is the way the world rends we’re close as close can be it’s the Path that Portends it’s the Arc that Bends points to what we all can see we are what we are been all we could be ‘twixt the darkling devil and the deep blue sea * ‘Tis the End of the Trail all Gambits now fail in midst of the gale we’re losing our sail ? alack for woe is me yes alas for woe is me * It’s the last sunrise never again to be what’s left is but dross and diablerie * For lorn is the hunter high on the hill and lost is the sailor at sea   [© R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

  Cheers of glory start to fade all too very soon here lie the brave defenders there bold attackers swoon their ploys forever gone for good quiet seethes the eerie plain where once horse and hero stood and where now all are slain and the good that came of it becomes part of legerdemain   *   So rally strong if you so choose and hail the hallowed day the living ever the winners of war ’tis the dead who always lose   *   On the Fourth sing we of victory of leaders and the led on the Fifth we look at the bloody field and mourn the guiltless dead   *   So scale the loss of countless lives and mourn the guiltless dead   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

  You have no mortal enemy , but time   Stopping by the Old School     Look around now where did it all go yesteryear’s laughter last winter’s snow?   *   doesn’t seem real now but you’ve been there before all so unreal now once favored haunts only mere spaces now favored no more where once you took your chances in surreptitious glances in bashful romances and late midnight dances   *   many that betrayed you few that were true all swept away now washed off in rue   *   schoolyard’s full now sea of new faces just walked beside it all the old places strangers stare back at you as you try to smile nobody knows you but you tarry a while coffee mug’s tipping full but your heart is so bare they’re where they should be but why are you there?   *   the masters are new they look at you oddly as you wave a hand you move away sadly they don’t understand   *   there walk the lovers still holding hands mocked by the wastrels by the old soda stands   *   you walk to the doorway you stop in some doubt will she come out again give you a shout she isn’t there now where did she go come away dreamer you’re just fortune’s fool that was long long ago time is very cruel one that you wished now you had only said you are the only one words left unsaid   *   hardest of thoughts are about what was not to be if you had a second chance to clasp fervently all that is left now is to grieve silently   *   you are on your way out they are walking past they the living present you the shadow past   *   once a happy stage where you frolicked so free now all’s closed to you wiped off the page   *   so you look one last time heave a heavy sigh not one to hear now your half-lisped goodbye   *   but as you walk away you hear yourself say I once had a name here I once bore a flame burnt me full sore then burns me still yet she who won’t remember I who won’t forget   *   O wish she would remember what I cannot forget?   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

(For Seekers , everywhere) There is a path to the secret heart that only One can know espying S/he is the Game of Life and has been forever so * There’s a key to the ardent heart that only One can mold in sighting lies such opulence beggars a myriad mines of gold * When you scout that lambent path and clasp that sacral key you have what fusty gods might crave rapturing beatitude and giddy felicity * So let ambition fail and shun that holy grail these be no more than just wraiths of the addled mind there’s nary a need for struggle nor strife Seek That which you Must find [©R.Kanth 2024] Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

The hoi polloi may never know that the world is built on lies so stand ever beholden bereft of true surmise * Awakening comes far too late to rise dazed in rude surprise * The Machine is Master of Deceit we’re duped before our eyes whence evil rules just everywhere and truth heart-broken dies * A few who know are banished hence to grieve in stifled cries banished hence to languish thence on that anguished bridge of sighs   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).

  Racism comes in many genres. I focus on its Occidental variety only because it dominates the Modern Era. In my view, which substantially differs from EM (EuroModernist) ideas, it is only an expression of our tribalist nature. On Occidental Civ : regrettably, its not even skin deep?   _____________________   Though Ye do think that in God’s Plan “though Adam delved and Eve span”** You were placed aloft The House Of (wo)Man yet I can swear dig deep enough <strong>We are equal pale beneath the tan;/strong>   ** John Ball, 1381, English Priest and rabble-rouser who said : “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

  We are, amongst other things, Myth-Making Animals. EM (European Modernism) adds even more powerful, if still delusionary, myths. You know. Free Market. Communism. Rules-based International Order. Serious myths. Myths to kill and die for. Not just political myths. Religious, social, cultural. And they keep us all in stark tensions. Verifiable facts rarely enter into it. Be it religious, or political.. Mind, oft Big Myths are built on tiny kernels of quasi-facts. Gives them that touch of verisimilitude. The Struggle over Facts is but a mild, humdrum, tepid, affair. The Clash of Myths , however, takes on aspects of a heart-pounding Steven Spielberg drama So many conflicts of our time stem from faulty epistemics and/or misread ontologies. We appear prone to embracing belief systems? The more complex , and stratified, the system , the bigger its myths. EM, e.g, is (over)laden with them. You learn them in grade school. Democracy, equality, et. al. The earlier they get you, the stronger they persist. Which is why religions also ‘catch them young’. Before they can think. The issue is not whether such idylls (esp political) are desirable, or not. The issue is whether they are achievable or not. This latter consideration rarely enters the picture. We get swept away by the draw of the former temptation, It’s a bit like romantic love. It is both real and illusory. The ego-displacement it provokes – which sustains it – rarely lasts long? But it thrills in the extant phase. To an extent, all the above are Affectations. They are Wilful Embraces of the Improbable. But there is a real world. Wherein affections are real, and instinctual. The bonds between children and parents, between siblings, et. al. Communal bondings are also innate, like tribal loyalties (what is termed, e.g., racism is really tribalism, at heart). These are natural, not societally, concocted. Of course, they too can crumble, if we so choose. Not much can survive, outside of our Wills. But they can also last forever, if we let them. The point of this is to suggest we need to be a bit more vigilant about our own pet myths. Makes for mutual, co-respecting, safety? For they can, at the limit, endanger, our personal, and collective, existence. The above is not a hypothetical, btw. Of course, one can indulge in a life of pure fantasy, in the merry concoction of notional states of being, if that’s one’s yen. Why not? Could be far more reassuring than the grim reality of life on the planet? Which should tell you, right away, WHY we dwell in fanciful delusions of all kinds? It calms the terror of life unfathomable on a lonely planet in an unscalable sea of endless space. Two little caveats. There are some myths that we can’t help but believe, such as a flat earth: until science steps in. But others, such as tales of angels, demons , or unicorns, are plain, puerile, horsefeathers. Postface As I look back on a life ill-spent, perhaps my only

  “Water, water , everywhere – but not a crocodile tear to spare”?   GAZA   • Killed: at least 34,488 people, including more than 14,500 children killed • 8,400 women Injured: more than 77,643 people Missing: more than 8,000 • • Occupied West Bank • Killed: at least 491 people, including more than: • 124 children Injured: more than 4,800 •   ________________________________   Shine shine Palestine though an alien bleeds you now brave brave Palestine for the spirit leads you now strong strong Palestine the world heeds you now rise rise Palestine your courage feeds you now hail hail Palestine The Other needs you now * You fell you broke you lost it all but naught did you yield when they swatted you like so many flies you still held the field now they have lost and you have won the Truth is soon revealed * Standing for your native rood you are heroes of the hour they yet failed to drive you out despite their awful power they the brute invaders and you the Fearless Tower * All they can do is kill kill kill and there ends their sorry game but you possess that iron will that no tyrant can tame * You will go down in history they will just go down river to the shining sea yours the High Renown * So hail hail Palestine your courage tributes you now and rise rise Palestine The Other salutes you now   • For ALL the innocent non-combatants slain in Palestine as a complicit world, North, South, East, and West, looked on, impassively.   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of LitVote.com   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

  Like civilization itself, IT rests with women. Men are structurally incapable. This has little to do with intentionality. Nor with anthropic notions of virtue and vice,   I have spent a lifetime investigating this problematic. And my conclusions reject all received Euro-Modernist (EM) shibboleths. I do science that is verifiable. No wishful thinking, no idylls. My ‘social theory’ is instantly comprehensible, via introspection and observation alone, with absolutely no recourse to ‘higher’ book-learned knowledge, prescribed by the Self-endorsing Mandarins of Approved Ideas. Test it out. N.B. What I provide, below, is a bare, suggestive, outline , sketch only, accessible to all. * Here is who we are. We are hominids, close cousins to chimps and bonobos. Exactly like them , we are instinctually driven. Just like ALL Life on the Planet. Males appear to take after Chimps, Women after Bonobos. After your initial snigger (!) , examine human behavior in its collective aspect. And then compare it to the primates identified. * ALL EM social theory is delusional. Because it leaves out instincts, the bird that doesn’t tweet in its discourse. Why? Because of the Judeo-Christian presumption that we are not descended of hominids. That we are crafted in the ‘image of god’. If so, god was an ape? Note the anomaly. Animals are credited with instinctual behavior. Humans are not. * Darwin shocked the world with his perturbing insight. But too late for social theory, which had been evolving rapidly in the prior decades: his book was published the same year as Marx’ first major published work. And he (Darwin) , too , was a bit defensive of his own idea. Malthus had inspired Darwin, but being a parson, could hardly walk that walk, with respect to human evolution. Marx did write to Darwin years later, expressing his admiration . But none of them explored the implications of Darwin’s discovery, for human behavior. * So, human males (in their collective aspect), sooner or later, seek domination , when cut loose from affective tribal/kinship ties dominated by women in their vital role as progenitors. That is the ultimate provenance of all War(s). Similarly, women are the original peacemakers: for needing to build a cordon sanitaire to raise children safely: safe , i.e., from the predations of men. Civilisation requires TWO important pacifications of the conditions of human existence. The pacification of wild nature, and the pacification of (the equally wild natures , ‘animal spirits’ of ) men. Both have to be ‘tamed’, and ‘domesticated’. Women play the key role in the latter , but it is a perpetual struggle. It is what I deem, The Essential Tension in our species. * When women succeed , we have a relatively pacific tribal community. Where they fail, as is more often than not, we have the world as we know it, as tribal forms devolve into empires. So, ALL our idylls flounder on this indefeasible reef. Liberte , egalite , socialism, et. al. all are undermined by the male struggle to

  If only we could if only we would clasp time in a sieve strain what is good drain what is not benefits remembered misdeeds forgot   *   Each pledge rue tested to keep or let go each love true tested to prove it is so true loves grip true heartbreaks slip through   *   Fair friends set fast traducers let pass if only we could if only we would such tempests belie we could live in the favor never would we waver O the times we would savor   *   If only we would if only we could clasp time in a sieve Oh how we would live in reason and rhyme past treason of time and fear not to die and fear not to die   [©R.Kanth 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

  He’s on the loose again like a wild runaway train got woodchips for a heart and a walnut for a brain   *   No conductor? No caboose? he’s gone plumb crazy have you heard the news? engineer’s soused rails are comin’ loose he’s all set to blow he just lit the fuse   *   He don’t give a hoot coz WE pay his dues    * He’s hoping now to bring the whole world down so pick up your duds pal and get out of town   *   Mad Max is comin’ a-rushing this way go on spread the news reekin’ of backy and yesterday’s booze he’s in dead earnest though he may look like a clown hoping this time to take us ALL down   *   So don’t hang around bud get the heck outa town   * I’ll let you guess who Mad Max is: I rather think there’s more than one of him out there…?   [©R.Kanth 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

  Before the lights go out do give me a shout   I need to know how you are   whether the world be here or the world be there   and we’re all deep in the dusk of war   *   Dwell not now on what went wrong   remember only the right   recall now only the good we did   nor fret about the blight   *   The world is now how it always was neither good nor bad   whether we be happy or sad bide on what can still be had   *   Here we are for but a short while and yet is there struggle and strife   in the vale of tears to yet find a smile there’s enough meaning to life?   *   So hug what you love   keep your dear ones close   and we might yet muddle through   the highs and the lows   *   Some flash of destiny   in all this wanton waste and war   despite chance and fate   and help come late   will raise hope   as we cross the bar?   *   So before the lights go out   do give me one last shout   near or far tell me how you are   before we cross the bar   *   just one last shout   beat still my heart –   before we cross the bar   * Upon listening to a sober broadcast that gave us but 48 hrs before the start of the End of Everything.   [©R.Kanth 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

    He was the best of the best   rose high above us led all the rest   the world is not kind we too can be so   but kept his   good faith   despite the  ebb and the flow   *   His  heart ever clean his voice ever  clear    warm was his visage strong was his cheer   barely got to know him ‘fore he was snatched away   wish I had but  told him how much he made my day   how I now remember his manner his mien   O the saddest of words it might have been    *   Seen much of  this  world savored good and the bad   yet was he the  only true friend I ever  had   they don’t come any better that much I do know   in the long  line of legends who ever come and  go   *   And  though  we be only pebbles in the sand   he’s  in a better place than we in this land   a far far better place than we in this land   * John McMurtry (1939 – 2021): I learnt of his passing far , far, too late.   University College London Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Professor of Philosophy University Professor Emeritus University of Guelph Graduate Studies Ontario, Canada NIG2W1 Philosophy and World Problems Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) UNESCO, Paris Oxford   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McMurtry_(academic))   [©R.Kanth 2024]     Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).  

  (For the 14000+ little lights extinguished as the skies burst above them)   ‘Twas a day in the holy month his mother wept at the wheel   and our little Gaza waif was trying to cadge a meal   I saw him walking here and there I stopped to ask him why   he just stared at me in open gaze more than a little shy   then he spoke in a warbled voice and said he didn’t know why   why their lot was so stark and poor under a sanguine sky   we’re now the lowly of the low I do not understand   what ails my stricken people what ails this wretched land   *   I said you need to know some history to learn why such things are   was a time when you were not so poor but were more than up to par   your land was famed around the world they marvelled at its skills   but dark fate fell upon your kind the kind that comes and kills   a foreign foe did seize your land stole your tillage too   put you out to pasture reaping riches for their few   thousands died they did not care they didn’t give a hoot   took taxes in but gave you naught and made off with their loot   your skills debauched arts destroyed you lives were helpless rent   they looked away as many died famine not by heaven sent   Shall we ever rise again said he amidst this dusky land?   *   The bombs burst all around us as I took him by the hand   it is your holy month said I so I can not tell a lie   but a fair world awaits your kind though so many now do die   the Arc of Justice swings very slow but swings ever fair it must   and your land will rise again that now lies wrapt in dust   yet again will you read great books with your little friends at school   yet again will you gad about and giddy play the fool   the storm that’s here will soon depart your fields will be yours again   and your battered towns will up and rise shining brightly on the plain   *   What goes around comes around such is our human fate   but trust in what is yet to be as we now walkabout and wait   your mother will weep not at the wheel nor will you ever cadge a meal   he smiled soft and walked away but still hungry for that meal   *   In keeping slimmest hope alive oft lies our human weal   they cannot bomb our inner pride our courage cannot steal   Even when Evil Rides the Wave to stay unflinched and brave   *   The boy was but an image just an image on the screen   yet I swear

  N.B. This is a short, but succinct, explication of my Argument that EuroModernism (EM) , under the delusion of building Utopia(s), has succeeded only in subverting even the promise of a human civilisation: all in the name of ‘progress’. Materialism, the opiate of the EM intelligentsia, quite extinguishes the anthropic spirit.   Wholesale pessimism about the Human Prospect is now ineluctable. Gaza clinched it. The self-designated civilization-mongers have all showed their true , hideous , colors. And all Nations within the Other that went along with the Gaza horror, silently , make that sentiment complete.   The impoverished , and the impuissant, have no friends – if we exempt S Africa – anywhere. So , history has not altered one bit. We humans still bunk in the jungle? And we are still barely refined chimps. So much for ‘evolution’.   The race is still to the swift/strong, with devil take the hindmost , the only rule. WW2, the Nazi holocaust, have taught us nothing. The world let that grisly horror persist , until the very 13th hr. Worse, the legatees of that holocaust are striving to excel the Nazi record in the current one they are perpetrating before us all.   So, ‘humans’ remain the animals they are, beneath that smug self-designation.   It is , actually, even worse than that. Until now it was Good vs Evil, and easy to recognize. But now we have descended yet another level. We are Amoral, unable to distinguish between the two.   I have argued that the US is the very First such society, all unawares, to cross that grim Rubicon. It is when Anthropic Society is subverted by rampant , self-seeking, Asocial Individualism , which sees Society as but a means, and a mere organon, for personal gratification: NOT as an organic, mutualist, affective community. It is this Unique Marker , that is the Demarcation Criterion that separates Western Euro-Modernist societies from Non-Western ones: the latter have not yet ‘graduated’ to that high idyll</em>. It marks the beginning of anomie: and leads swiftly to angst, and insanity, where narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths proliferate. Which explains the nearly 2-a-day mass-shootings , in the US, which faze no one. It is the new ho-hum. It also puts us, hurtling, on the down escalator, toward a Transhuman species.   The global struggle today, in metaphor, is between Mammals and Reptiles. I.e., Warm blooded vs Cold blooded. The Calculating vs the Caring. With 14000 innocent non-combatant , children, pulverised by bunker bombs, with nary a shade of compunction nor remorse , we know which side is winning. NO scope for any doubt. They have not even crocodile tears to shed. Btw , The Perpetrator is not ‘Amoral’ , like its Abetting Big Brother , being still in the plebeian vein of vintage barbarism.   So, it is tragic, but true. This is the way the (human) world ends. Not with a scream, but a simper.   [©R.Kanth 2024]   Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed