(For the lorn)   Because I could not stop for her she would not stop for me and so we crossed each other out until eternity until eternity it was I saw her yet again this time we both stepped out of line to ask about the pain her answer was a query my own reply a lie for we were both but weary of the truth that questions why? how can we know the meanings now of words left unsaid? of deeds left but half undone of fears that fancy bred? and dreams there were a hundred score and yearnings even more the agony of sorrow fed on joys that went before for my love is like a waterway winding through the wastes of time now sliding down a vale of tears now climbing hills sublime yes, my love is like a waterway but hers is like a rose so she prefers to let it lay full blown in sweet repose but I adhere to older fears and ask: whither it goes? why the wonder is gone to weed though the musk within still blows?   (ii)   Love beats to slower paces now or so the aging markers tell the sirens sleep a goodly sleep nor hear the tolling bell   (iii)   Because one did not dare to do another, firmly found a way and time that keeps the record books but let this record say he loved too dearly to be true nor sought to question why he chanced upon his only truth but she took it for a lie they take the blame who know the game and fools, they rarely gain but O dear god! for but one more chance to roll the dice again! to roll the dice again ye gods! wanting (just once) to win to beat the reign of unbroken odds and still the pain within to still the pain of impassioned love unrequited to the last to dull the flame of fury born from raw remembrance past raw remembrance past dear heart! fury, forever slain banished hurt from all the scars in this world now on the wane yes, in our world now on the wane I fear the years have left us dry and now only the dregs remain nor tears to help us cry yes, our world is on the wane my friend time’s arrow speeds on high our fondest hopes now vain my love our sweetest smile a sigh! in swiftest streams the sands run out Our joys grow spectre thin age withers our sparkled mein as lifeblood cools within   (iv)   like dusk at noon or a dappled moon our lives begin to pale in mine and thine my Valentine the light begins to fail the light begins to fail, O hark! the night is on the rise the song of life is come to grief O hear its last reprise! an epitaph for both our hearts build high above this hill buffeted by

  (For all who thirst)   A hunger burst upon me wild the source I could not descry I rose from a sleepless slumber to ask the wherefore and why   I had stood my life at windows not ever daring to eat but staring at such diners Deep delved in wine and meat   This fruit of the bread that breaks I saw it healed them not the juice of the grape that slakes I saw it steeled them not   I had put aside in the past the grosser appetite for the soul had so dearly wished to be but laden light   But give me now your breadstick your chalice of chafing wine tonight I think it’s high time to welter with the swine   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  In the abbey of the inner mind an unholy thought I could not find in the garden of the gentle heart not one feint that stooped to art   *   Within, true even well and wise the very provenance of paradise only when we forfeit this home all paths lead to debauch and Rome   *   Once we slough the inner child do we go unruthful into the wild born true yet prey to travails the spirit strong in the world fails for in multitudes we cease to be in sweet kindred and affinity   *   Narrow the compass of inner desire when large looms trespass comes frenzy and fire   *   Safe is the hearth sweeter the home outside that nunnery neither rove nor roam   *   Where small stays the compass there large looms the heart when large is the trespass we come aloof and apart when we bow to the gods of little things the heart surmises and the spirit sings   [© R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For the lorn and the reft)   She rides with the rapture I reel with the storm her darkness forestalling my own burst of dawn morning beckoning the red robins call my heart’s all a-flutter as the feathers, they fall afternoon shadows evenings of light my sun is slow setting let there be night   *   Gardens a-growing fountains at play fled from the frolic I must hasten away tomorrow is tempered the games are undone too late for this dreamer decline is begun dark noons are gathered the skies are ablaze yesterday dismounting I falter from grace   *   In the far yonder pale moons are anon my sky is gone awry the spool has unspun she flies with the falcon I wilt with the rose red pennants are flying as the blood river flows so the blood river flows yet am I unstirred her ways may be winsome but my songs are unheard   *   Swept by the tempests borne by the trees I cleave to her conquests she clings to the breeze days of dull glory evenings macabre noons with no solace nights of dead stars though scorched by the cinders I stoke her red fires but dark love hinders and passion retires   *   I ravage her darkness she’ll ravish my light the living repining to the phantoms’ delight incense is bending but the boughs are unbent my life is but ending and hers is unspent my gods are come glancing the bowers below her demons advancing are felled by a blow fetch me a wood sprite these forests among for the glens are a-glooming my springs are unsprung   *   Anthems appealing I sing to her vales she, blissful, unhearing and nothing avails she stalks by the rushes the willows among in afternoon hushes my songs go unsung   *   Night birds are calling my fears from afield darkness appalling my fate is now sealed footsteps echoing the hallways are dim dark clouds a-blowing the aspect is grim she laughs at my fading lips in full bloom longing, evading, my raptures of gloom come not in a teasing rapier unhung so winsome, appeasing yet mortally sprung   *   No ambient sorrows no luminous joys no cares for the morrow no tedious ploys my love is a pardon for the sins of my life an enchanted garden where serpents are rife no care for the morrow all’s put paid from the start still burgeoning sorrows load the unyielding heart my love is a dreaming of a world held at bay no hunters, no hunted no stalker, no prey in the fit of my fever I pine for love past the passions that (op)press me love’s languors that last   *   For death is my consort the love of my dreams my reason for living the rhyme in these streams yes , death is my mistress ever leading me on in diurnal distress as I still sojourn on

  (For the fragile in spirit)   Love hangs like a gossamer from a rainbow in the sky   if only words could fly!   sunsets reek of butterflies amber leaves look like wings   and I think somewhere nigh a nightingale sings   the day is spread like honey slow seeping from a jar   emphatically sunny and things are up to par   *   I cannot see your love light and barely feel the pain   perhaps this summer madness will not come back again?   *   Though I winter in my solitude   trying hard not to cry   and the seasons whisper farvel   fond lover say goodbye!   I remain lost in languor still   just don’t ask me why   for matters not what I do whether I live or die   *   Love hangs like a gossamer my own rainbow in the sky   scattering my kisses like petalled wings that fly   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool John Lennon   I can think of no more potent words to describe the ontic situation (of denigration) of the powerless( in context of class, caste, race, gender, et. al.)vis a vis the empowered.   *   To state the obvious, even within The Other, dominant groups mistreat the weaker: so there is a near endless regress of the binary across the spectrum.   An upper class Woman may oppress a lower class woman, despite both being the ‘oppressed’ vis a vis Males.   An Afro-Am , oppressed by white racism, can in turn look down upon native Africans for being lower on the totem pole, and so on.   Happens all the time.   *   Putting on Modernist, ‘Progressivist’, airs does not alter that reality one whit.   So, the moral superiority of Victims is contextual, and temporary, only.   Yesterday’s victims can turn today’s oppressors, given half a chance.   Besides, as Colin Wilson pointed out aeons ago there is nothing an Outsider wants more than to be an Insider.   So , the moral gap between the Primary and the Other may not be as deep as is oft imagined.   Examples abound, if one looks around with care.   Both the historical avatars of EuroModernism (EM) – Capitalism and Socialism – have been run through with stark iniquity, oppression, and injustice.   Stated unhappily, truth is that Man is a beast, lest we forget.   *   And the only (near)”Utopia” ( I do NOT subscribe to that term) that exists is a communal, familial, tribal, entity that, intra-tribe, adopts pacific, affective, ties, within a matrix of co-operative mutualism.   It is the one locus where unpredictable male violence, the very bane of human society, is best enchained/entrapped within the healing bonds of Affective Relations.   This is what Women achieve(d), in that societal form: no other formula has ever worked.   In my parlance, (with)in that instance, the Social Economy of Affections (Tribal modes) trumps the Political Economy of Interests (EM).   It is, indeed, the First Condition of Civilisation: i.e., the domestication/pacification of Men.   The Second Condition is the Pacification (domestication) of Nature.   So now we should know why all utopias (of EM inspiration) fail: male aggression in such arid domains – let’s call them, advisedly, No Woman’s Lands – razes them to the ground, in fruitless power struggles.   *   Recognition of our real, intrinsic, species traits has never been an EM forte: they prefer fantasy – kindergarten pap ? – to lull doubt and disquiet .   We accord instinctual behavior to our close cousins – say the chimps – but fail to apply it to ourselves.   This is because early EM theorists imagined that ‘MAN” was created in the image of ‘god’: Darwin’s correction came too late.   The conjectural ‘progressivism’ keeps us all in thrall of that powerful amphetamine called ‘hope’ , endlessly

  (For the Many, who Wonder at it all )   Let’s assume there’s a ‘god’? Why not?   The so called “science” of economics makes all manner of (outlandish) assumptions to prove its axiomatic truisms. So we can, surely, do no worse?   *   So, let’s assume there’s a god. What possible purpose might IT have had to have humans evolve from the primeval slime?   I can think of at least 3. Of course , that may not exhaust all possibilities.   *   It got Lonely, and needed a (semi)intelligent species to relate to (albeit invisibly).   Or, the Vanity motive. It wished to have a species that could marvel at Its many glories. Needed, in effect, sentient admirers.   Or, It was so plain Disgusted with the Schema of Evolution that it needed a species that could put an end to All of it, once and for all. So it can start over. Whence it allowed US to emerge, leaving it to our (expected) consummate turpitude to destroy all life on the planet ever so swiftly.   *   I don’t know about you, but I rather favor the last?   *   Have a look around. There is a certain rough post-factum veracity to it, isn’t there?   *   It may be time we asked such questions before it’s all gone in a giant plume of smoke? I wonder.   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For Antara & Indrina)   It is said that Spencer’s idea of tragedy was a beautiful theory slain by one single ugly fact. Well, that fits. EuroModernism (European Modernism) was a thing of (meretricious) beauty. It promised Utopia. Liberte, egalite, fraternite?   *   So, what happened? It was overcome, negated, by realite.   Are you listening, Mr Fukuyama?   Is this still the best of all possible worlds, Dr Pangloss?   *   In my critique of EM – the only totalising critique of the paradigms that have ruled the world under European tutelage – I explain it all. Why it was (fore)doomed. And how we can get out of it. There is NO other explanation that fits ALL the facts. Nor is there any other complete salve than the one I have proposed. Those who still use EM slogans/agendas/narratives to get out of this mess are delusional. As Einstein said it you can’t solve problems using the same ideas that sourced the problem. Read that last line over one more time. I offer a transcendent critique that sublates the entire, misconceived , baggage of the ‘enlightenment’.   *   Here (below) the links to my rendition(s). It might yet pay to read and absorb them. Whenever and wherever. I warrant. LINKS On Euro-Supremacy? The Matrix* Kanth, R. Farewell to Modernism, NY Peter Lang, 2017   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For CLM)   My first, and lonely heart is you red, but swiftly changing hue beating, almost holding still a quaking hart upon a hill breaking, but yet far from gone like darkling dusk before the dawn sleeping now, within the shade that your own passing shadow made   It wilts, it will, within the hour ensconced within the jaded bower it burns, it yearns, and still it may happen perchance upon your way before its leaving time again in a world that’s ever on the wane   Time and tide return to find the ores that deepest love has mined and jewelled orbs in sweet surmise speak of treasures within the eyes speckled emeralds sparkling green and magic casements all unseen my darkest love, my deepest hue cleave, my lonely heart, to you   Before its leaving time again and anguish tempests fall in rain lost beneath that silent shade that your own leaving shadow made I am leaned upon the folding flower in vigil for your waking hour   My first, and lonely, heart is you once red, but now in wistful blue [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For Malini & Anjana)   Let us sing love songs whilst they go on to make war we may get nowhere but will they get far? , This world is plim with lovers what else is there? and though doom still close hovers we shall not beware * And whilst missiles will fly and innocents still die we shall be unmoved we will not give cry . Perchance as they kill a few may cavil? cross over and join their orders defy ? . Though we may well sink in less than a blink history won’t say that no one did try * So come and sing us love songs as they welter in war show these witless warriors how wanton we are   [© R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  In the softness of a silhouette my subtlety is spent   no matter   love spreads like sunshade shed by fleecy clouds whereinunder you dart like light through nestles of dappled spots   it’s dark again   the spell of shine suffers the sorrow of sunset to rise once more in the slow stupor of morn   nothing dies   only a rustle in the leaves of pain wakes a dirge in the green as a song flees the bush   love stirs   starlight rakes the heart plim with rich mists of sleep as a lute plays forlorn in the dusk   I wake   * This time your pulse shall still my breath   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For CLM)   There is a certain spark of light that burns through dark of night leaves a hallowed trail making the sable pale when winds are blowing high and storms hearken nigh fills the vagrant heart where the healing zephyrs start   *   it has long shown the way to night voyagers the day comes from know not where beams high now here now there in world of sturm und drang illuminates the air   *   Flashes hope of coming cheer to caverns plim with fear and so by and by lifts spirit from earth to sky teaching spirit sunk so low to burgeon and to glow   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For the still human, amongst us, who may yet be presumed to exist)   Something happened.   And we lost control. Or, more correctly, the old standby of a semblance of control.   The Rulers took personal charge. Believe it. Reworked the Old Game. Determined to complete Late Modernist Devolution.   *   First they announced, in high flourish of phony philosophy, we were Post-Modern. Post-Moral, is what they meant: and our savants, ensconced in the Academy, fell for it , lock, stock, and ____. Post-Truth, too. And, inevitably, Post-Human. “Anything Goes”, the New Credo.   *   Whence Dystopia entered the world.   *   Reality expunged, as a notion. Society razed. Interpersonal relations attenuated. Empathy dissolved, And a surrogate, ersatz, world , an avalanche, of cyber gadgetry invented.   Finance took over. Industry abandoned, or relocated.   * And the Internet became the New Reality. *   Life as a lottery was long an accomplished EM (European Modernism) fact. Now it involved more danger, more violent insecurity. Jobs became temporary, part time, on and off. The superficiality of all things became manifest. Life rendered only a fit vehicle for (gross) entertainment. Much of this was sold to people via that old shibboleth , the Great (Euro) Fetish of ‘Freedom’.   *   But, against all that make-believe , real, organic life still had to be lived, continuously, day to day, by the hoi polloi. Mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, etc. Which Policy Maker gives a hoot?   *   Mass murder evokes no response. Sovereign nations can be overrun. 21 Trillion dollars can vanish without an audit. Anyone can be slain without investigation.   *   Undergirding it all, the incessant Worship of Mammon, the only true, heartfelt , religion of the EM universe.   *   Media turned over to stenography. Justice to party politics. The State to the Deep State.   *   WW3 could be started without anyone even shrugging. Nuclear options openly floated. Power and Wealth Elites now in insouciant command. In so-called democracies , people are wholly Xed out.   *   This is what EM and “European Civ” has generously attained, as the pinnacle if its misanthropic achievements.   *   What of the future? Who knows? It is their idle plaything. I couldn’t bet on it. We’ll be lucky if we have one?   *   Their lapidary soullessness deserves a spectacular monument: no future generation (if it were to exist) would believe it, otherwise.   So alienated are they , from their own innate humanity, that they can press that button anyday without blinking.   Absit Omen.   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For my European Friends)   What a fateful continent what an anointed space 500 years ago not far apart from the rest of the human race But then came the fateful hour And then came the meteor shower they rose up like a Vampire Power   *   Scorched this globe without a pause Afro-Asia Americas everywhere left a bigger scar every year a bigger war invented the unthinkable in brass all unsinkable weapons that humanity breach compacts of erimitic reach was Universal Catastrophe their own manifest destiny?   *   Greed/ambition cannot supply true civilisation that passed them by they might let the planet burn nor will they ever learn that rational is not reasonable hubris is not seasonable contentment is not treasonable that less is more that life is short that this earth cannot sustain their grot that empires simply do not last the First today could end up Last   *   May the guardian spirits yet forgive who learnt to conquer ere they learned to live in zeal to conquer forgot how to live   * this is a lament of the governors of the European world, not its hapless denizens.   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  As some sip their herbal tea deep in inner soliloqy   dusk dark eve and morn every day in every way night noon diurnal day   missiles fly people die luckless children hide and cry   But why?   *   Have you seen a living being die fall to earth with wordless cry?   Sure this side is right that is not or one is more right than not   So what?   all good reasons soon forgot in due season matter not when bodies cave and corpses rot   *   One day ’twill matter not who died and who did not or who was right who was not   why they clashed why they fought it will all be clean forgot so many there be still know it not   but for now by shell and shot by war machines and other means bodies fall corpses rot   *   Bodies fall corpses rot it does not end yet dear heart we still pretend but tell me not for I’ve heard it all   Is this by Civilisation wrought?   or are we still Neanderthals in rush to heed reptilian calls lizard brains to be enchained to stay refrained to be restrained by ball and chain and barbed walls?   *   And if so be we savage still ever ready for heady thrill to ravage raid maim and kill   Yes that is who we men still are and why we make such endless war   wherever raw instincts reign reason has but scant domain   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  ( For the Wretched of the Earth)   It’s time that the (non-Western)world sloughed off Eurocentric slurs? The West has concocted the dour vocabulary which keeps Non-European and ex-Colonial peoples in bondage. Whilst maintaining itself as Numero Uno.   *   This linguistic slander is common to the social sciences and the popular media. Within the former instance, it hides under the umbrella of objectivity. Amongst the latter, it operates more openly . What is of concern is that even putatively ‘progressive’ currents that are Euro-inspired fall for it, hook, line, and simper.   *   The ‘Third World’ is one such hoary appellation. I will not dwell on its standard, original definition which, when properly parsed , is bad enough. Instead, on its current usage which someone like Mr Trump has raised to even higher levels of outright travesty, in his perorations. At a talk in JNU (India’s national university, in New Delhi) a young faculty member described India as ‘third world’. I told him India did not need to be re-colonised : it had never really shaken off its colonial mold. First World/Third World? Global North /Global South? What euphemistic tomfoolery is this? What they omit to say is the Imperial World and the Ex-Colonial World. There you have it.   *   By sticking solely to materialist indices of ‘progress’ , the West maintains its vaunted supremacy (albeit under challenge, today) Societal life, however, is , in essence, qualitative. Within that higher calculus, any simple tribal formation, the Bushmen(and women) , or virtually any native peoples, e.g., rank above any extant Modernist western nation. That was the sordid boon of EuroModernism: the belief that societal ‘progress’ is materialist in nature. In so doing, they missed the real nature of our species-being by a farmer’s mile. And doomed the world’s great civilisations ( India, China, et. al.) to gratuitous self-disparagement.   *   However, my point here is to turn the tables a mite and announce a Fourth World, in the making for years. In so doing, I will play along with the nonsensical ‘first world/third’ world binary. Consider it as food for thought. (Planetary)Life is too short to scribe extended scientific papers, so best to get to the point expeditiously. Besides , this piece is writ for a lay audience. What is the Fourth World? It is to be understood as Underdeveloped ( ‘third world’) in Qualities, and Overdeveloped ( ‘first world’) in Costs (private and social). Its meaning will be(come) clear.   *   The US is an exemplar ( as is the UK). Look at some summary data. 41st in Sustainable Development(below Cuba), despite a high aggregate GDP . 46th in efficiency of Health Care (ranked, btw, Last in the industrialised world), but spends more on health than any one. Highest amongst 20 wealthy nations in Child Mortality. In Minority rights and Civil liberties, ranks below Mongolia, right on par with Panama. In Inequality, has the highest Gini Coefficient 58.6 (index of Inequality) in

  (For Asad Zaman)   The Romantic stood by the edge. Come in , sport, cried the shark, a Realist, splashing about merrily. But surely , you will eat me, he objected. The idea, said the shark shocked, why would I do that? Just a hunch, said he. Come, do you not trust, asked the shark, upset. Do you not believe in inherent goodness. I do. Then come on, I’ll take you out to sea, be a real thrill. The Romantic hesitated. Really? Of course, we sharks are not all bad. We’ve been sorely misjudged. Sheer bigotry. You sure? Of course, look at me, said the shark , smiling. The Romantic looked , and shuddered at the long bare teeth. I mustn’t be so judgmental, he thought , it’s not right. He slid in the water.   *   An Observer watched it all, from his safe perch atop the beach. Why, he asked the shark, curious, after it was over. It’s just nature, said she shrugging. She couldn’t stand guilt trips. She felt sorry for the Romantic. I was born to eat, he to be eaten. What could be simpler?   *   So. Good gets eaten every day, thought the Observer, pondering. Does it ever change, he asked, suddenly. No, said the shark, wouldn’t be around if it did. So. the world belongs to Evil, he spoke out loud. She didn’t like to be thought of as evil. She was a good natured shark. She was driven only by necessity. But she humored him. No. Evil wouldn’t last a day without good. Good is vital. You see: the truth is the whole. Prey, predator are both nature’s creations. Btw are you, perchance, a romantic, she asked , thinking now of lunch. Not on your life, he said, walking away, still ruminating.   *  This encounter between a Romantic and a Realist had had him thinking. He smelt opportunity. He felt he may have just found his metier in life.   Are you a philosopher, she yelled after him, angrily. She really didn’t like their kind. They sat on the fence. He smiled. Close: I’m onto something new: I think I shall be an Economist, he said. What will you do? She asked, in some surprise, not being familiar with that idyll of Modernism. Equivocate, he said.   What’s that? asked the shark, who had flunked grade school. You know, I’ll go, “ on the one hand, on the other hand…”, and folks will lap it up. Ah, as I suspected, she said, a pure parasite. You’re not much use to Evolution. Why do you even exist. I don’t see the point. No one will ever have a clue, he admitted, but I’ll be all the rage. Why, they’ll even give me a Nobel for talking out of both sides of my mouth at once, but still saying absolutely nothing. * Don’t you have any morality, gasped the shark, who was yet a moral conservative, genuinely startled None, he

  (for Chauvinists, everywhere)   When I consider company I keep in a lot dreary in struggle steep the dour bigotry in which they steep a flaw in manufacture I then try to capture for they who so shallow built void shame reft of guilt bubbling visceral to the hilt who hollow sow must hollow reap whence their zealotry too can scarce run deep?   *   One can scarcely be loathing vapid sheep in sheep’s clothing if such be their mortal state whom I so pity how can I hate?   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For Paul Feyerabend*)   Do you know a wasteland a surly cut and paste land come have yourself a taste land it reacheth high it sinketh low in dark dispatch of a horror show O how its noxious vapors glow it doth the diurnal world bestride here a jekyll there a hyde in demon hubris dotard pride where it goes is ruin spread rancor driven malice led manic fury contumely fed it cometh strong it walketh tall takes its pick from one and all who dares resist its vampire call here there be no souls to sell long departed to gates of ____ no longer tell who’s ill or well all righteous rush its toxic hordes beating ploughshares into swords shredding amity in shrill discords where will it pause but no one knows where it enters havoc goes as in its heart the canker grows in its heart the canker grows in its blood the virus flows in its wake dark dudgeon is rose talk not then of turpitude nor of the now departed good it’s all too widely understood these rhymes but go where verses might in the fever of the night warning us of a coming blight ready now for the coming blight? not much scope for break of light where we no longer parse the wrong from right where we no longer care about wrong and right where the spirit is reft bad faith is rife where the spin is turgid and truth is trite   * Late German Philosopher I became friends with, in his latter days, and my one true fellow traveller   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (for All who bleed)   Know that the world is never right beneath every boon lies a blight a wan darkness woke at noon night clouds that beshroud the moon and yet perforce we persevere though hurt is deep and price too dear for it is our grim and mortal lot to endure gore grime and grot as all things rush to fall apart in letting it go lies true art so pause let it just fade away we ourselves not here to stay earth’s a half way house at best we’re here for some unfathomed test let them who think they know it all take heed for they too shall fall not one in all eternity has any clue as to why we be nor where we go nor why we dwell despite errant dreams of heaven and hell such delusion is our mortal state to dream of some blessed happy fate even as living blood runs dry too brave who be to break and cry but it matters not what we believe we come we bleed whence we leave in ignorance are we brought here in more ignorance we disappear there is no obvious amnesty no matter how very true we be yet they that choose a righteous way not ‘cause they must but ‘cause they may not to gain in what lies beyond but because their hearts are true and fond though helpless hapless they too plod in philanthropy rise higher than god the venal in faith that live but a fraud know that the former rise higher than god   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For my daughters)   They run in somnolent soliloquy His story. her story their story. our story this story , that story A few of them sweet some plain gory * Winners kneel to thank victims walk the plank how to reconcile? memes warm and vile? I know not The Way this blessed/damned day. Yet is Truth the Whole the robbed, and they who stole some will celebrate others , curse their fate * Let us be amnesiacs? willing gulls and hacks scrub the wicked past and hope that it will last Let it be forgot who did which to what and toward that simple end Embrace the Enemy , as Friend * On this Goodly, Grateful, Day on this Mournful, Grieving, Day* Reflect, in dour Philanthropy on what can still be made to be in spite of history? It is how in time Virtue teaches Vice in wilful abnegation in hope it will suffice Yet is it a hope it’s how the wounded cope albeit in dun despair at the Wantonly Unfair * On the two sides to this holiday, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-okm80fap68   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For Asha & Michael)   We have to rule the world the Last Hegemon said power is all too heady and its gone to my head but that leads to war the Little People said and before you know it why millions will be dead better dead than red the Last Hegemon said so you see Little People why we must ever be ahead but oh that is so wicked the Little People said to threaten all of human life plim with shock and dread   *   we will bomb from shore to shore drive them to the sea we will show them blood and gore en route to victory   *   The Little People went to bed all shaken to the core as sonic booms and drone attacks above did rock and roar when it was done none was left all were stricken low one Little Person fallen said see we told you so   *  The Last Hegemon sang this song even as he fell we will ever march to war unto the gates of hell if we can’t be Number One this be the second best we do what we must do if you put us to the test it is writ in our genes you know whence it must be so war is in our blood you see surely y’all must know   *   Evolution took a longish pause in horror at the fray Survival of the Fittest? was Not The Proper Way a new species did she endow lived but free on air Gender free homogeneous and it did flourish everywhere!   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For Sudhir Sopory)   When angels gather in dank unrest when demons disdain their madding fest when gods wonder which course is best when all’s turmoiled in foiled quest pheasants stand still whilst peacocks crest rivers flow backwards more is less North is gone South East is West   *   You know it’s amiss nothing’s at rest could it be perchance some mortal test?   *   Worlds uneasy Creation stressed? the pious waylaid the wanton blessed divine retreating No More Redress?   *   Divine retreated no more redress? Yes It’s Upon Us The Last Duress   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  Morality, contrary to EM (European Modernism) relativism, is our essential species-trait.   It is, in fact, the very building block of human society.   The First Moral Relation is between mother and infant.   It is also the very first, vital, natural/social tie.   *   EM ideology arose in challenge to the sway of the Church of Rome; but was even more antagonistic to the idea of a moral order.   The latter would fit ill with its venal, materialist, ambitions*.   *   EM , once on the ascendant, soon replaced extant moral law of medieval Europe , with written legal codes: written , that is, by its own votaries.   In a way, E-Modernism expunged a moral universe and substituted a rational-legal framework for it, and deemed it ‘progress’.   The latter is more negotiable, more flexible, and more susceptible to the ploys of vested interests.   Commerce demands enforceable contracts- being between distrusting parties motivated only by the prospect of gain – whence the preference for hard and fast legal codes.   *   This is how Canon Law (basic to the Church of Rome, and inimical to profit-taking and interest-bearing) was largely buried by EM zealots, in support of the nouvelle ‘Protestant’ revolution that helped break the social tie and the idea of collective responsibility (good , tangible, ‘works’ being discarded by the esoteric modality of a privatised ‘faith’) , in favor of asocial, adversarial, individualism.   And, once moral laws are abandoned, we enter the now all too familiar world of a Post-Moral Society where, essentially, ‘anything goes’.   *   And, once morality is rendered non-essential , even superfluous, we slide surely down the bannister of what I have termed Human Devolution   Because, to be Post-Moral is to be Post-Human.   And that is where the Lead Hegemon of EM is at today.   Post Truth, Post Morality, and Post Human.   Almost beyond redemption?   You tell me.   *For more background to all this, see my Farewell to Modernism, N.Y., 2017   [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)

  (For GV)   The simple homilies we elide, daily?   .   Love one another!(The Bible) Only Connect! (Forster) Be true to one another! (Arnold)   .   I could say it all more economically: Be Kind! Or, simply: Care !   *   Those are a <strong&gt;cri de coeur</em> of our anthropic existence. Inherently superior to the ‘liberte, egalite’</strong> EM sloganeering which serve to decoy us into fruitless struggles, into perpetuity. A loaf of democracy and a jug of equality will not quench that inner hunger/thirst . Nor will full employment, zero inflation, and endless growth of the GDP cover it.   .   Such notions remain high epistemic idylls, only, honored in the breach, unless grounded in realisable societal forms. They cannot simply be ‘engineered’, by design or declamation, contrary to extant EM (EuroModernist) notions   *.   In my critique of EM I have sketched the ontic (pre)conditions for such states of being –subject ever to human variability ( which can never be discounted). I have also noted that in those specified societal contexts such affirmations are quite spontaneously evoked. I won’t repeat them here.   *   It is helpful to review what is possible, Even in the midst of all this dystopian madness. <strong>Yes, Dystopian Madness. <strong>I will repeat the obvious: we live in a world gone mad. A madness structurally innate in the philosophical premises undergirding EM ideas. * Human society is an organic, moral, entity. This basic, simple, truth is elided by all of EM ideology/social science. Until we rediscover that, we will continue on this catastrophic path to expand <strong>Amoral Society (EM society) to its nether limits. If not undone, and soon, we will be , irreversibly, the insensate, amoral, zombies we are fast becoming, if we survive at all. * In the Beginning was the Life Affirming Deed, not some vacuous ‘Word’. Time to recall/revive mutually affirmative modes of societal existence, before it is too late? Your call.   [© R.Kanth 2024]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)  

  (For Gayatri Spivak)   Imagine, wrote(and sang) John Lennon. Beautiful, evocative, words. But , regrettably, illustrative of what I have termed EM (European Modernism) delusions. Ever refining utopias – in the mind. Flights of fancy have their place. Dreaming has a function. Undoubtedly. It helps many us survive the iniquities of the present. In hope. Hope has a place, too (as indicated above). Though as Ben Franklin said, they who live on hope die of starvation. And as Walter Benjamin said: hope is (oft) given as a sop to the hopeless.   *   Yet the real cannot be talked, or hoped, away. It needs be recognised, understood, in its ontic depth. So we know limits, boundaries, of what is possible. Quantum Physics suggests that sub-atomic reality is flush with possibilities. But , at our level of existence, we need to scale in probabilities, as a check to that ontic largesse. Question arises: is nothing impossible? I know very little physics, though I’ve read heaps. So I cannot say. I do know human anthropology. Better than any EM ideologue. I will sum that up. Our species has essential, instinctual, properties which EM ideology has buried, elided, and/or hid from sight, in its facile constructions. We are, familial, communal, co-operative , convivial , and affective beings. That is our inner species-being.   *   But human devolution, continuous since the eclipse of simple, early, tribal forms (which are like extended families bound by affections) deforms that essence, in manifold ways, via the vagaries of history/societal processes. EM sanctions and sacralises that deformation in the form of extant EM ideology and social theory. And , in so doing, has us live and function (mentally, and eventually, actually) in a bleak, banal, avaricious, competitive, adversarial, uncaring, world in stark alienation of our own essential needs and capabilities. The consequences of this error are grave: it becomes a self-fulfilling lie. It has turned a band of convivials into a company of strangers. It has morphed mammals into reptiles. It has us viewing society as but a means to achieve sordid, asocial, adversarial, acquisitive, individualist, ends, pitted against one another, in incessant, if dubious, struggle. It is what must be Undone.   *   But that is not to invent, au contraire, some fantasy utopia(s) ( where all traffic lights stay green? ) in its place (anthropic life is fragile and tenuous, and in variable natural environs, has multiple vicissitudes). Simple tribal forms are caring, cooperative, and convivial, within: but suspicious and dubious of other such forms without. This us and them distinction is basic, and cannot be wished , ‘imagined’ away. We share that with many fellow animals.   *   So, to be reasonably content , and at ease, we need to recognise, and cater to, our real needs. We are best suited to live in small , face to face (Gemeinschaft), communal forms. So, e.g., the EM ‘nation-state’, an artificial, imposed , entity, now the universal norm, is wholly inimical to

  In a prior post , I called EM (EuroModernism) a Death Machine The Death Machine     If so, what might be the salve?   *   Let’s address this in two simple, but initial, steps. 1.EM dehumanises us, by refusing to credit us our essential human nature (affective, co-operative, mutualist, familial), and instead assumes we are rationalist, competitive, self-seeking, and individualist. Salve: Rehumanise ourselves. We need to recognise our human essence , de-emphasize the latter attributions, and reorient life and living in conformity with that essence. Whence we have to affirm the primacy of affective relations , whilst displacing other relations onto a secondary plane. 2. EM depersonalises life and living. Salve: Personalise all relations, infusing/affirming them with affective content. The sullen bleakness/ennui of everyday, adversarial, life in the public sphere then evaporates and it starts to become ‘meaningful’ again. It’s akin to a black & white film slowly taking on color. Just following these 2 simple, instantly available, protocols will help , slowly, to first expose, and then transmogrify the Modernist Wasteland into a somewhat more bountiful domain of existence.   Other, follow through, steps will then spontaneously evolve.   *   What did I just describe above ?   In effect, the social ontology of simple tribal society where all relations are affective: whence meaningful, non-alienating, and mutually affirming.   The salve is a gradual process of disengagement with EM diktats that impose artificial boundaries/borders and infect all relations with the toxins of doubt , disquiet, distrust.   *   Anthropic life is utterly simple, not complex.   E-Modernism, in its manipulative thrusts, diverts our energies from where they serve our human needs to serving the interests of the system.   It infuses a faux intensity and gratuitous complexity into the social ethos booning us an utterly phony sense of chic sophistication and superiority to pre-Modern social mores.   We are, thereby, misled into squandering the many, simple, bounties of life in favor of building castles in the air, jousting windmills like Don Quixote, seeking the unattainable, dreaming of impossible utopias, chasing ephemeral chimeras of imagined Erewhons, and thereby living ever dispiritedly, and bogged down, in states of palpable discontent .   Tropes like the tortured artist, or the angst-ridden existentialist, born in EM salons of wilful anomie, are emblematic of the self-induced, delusional, nature of EM states of being.   It’s a dreadful treadmill: and, like All Modernist Paths, leads nowhere, except to certain disenchantment.   Precious lives are all too often wasted: into fruitless escapades , and unrequiting retreats, that take us further and further away from the sources of our real contentments.   Contra the protestations of the system, life is not about exalted attainments or ineffable achievements.   These are transparently false snares that lure us straight into the maelstrom of endless struggle, strife, and gratuitous , incessant, conflict : with others , and our own inner psyches.   At needless, fruitless, war with each other, and ourselves.   An expense of

  Orwell knew. As did Illich, and Gandhi. And a few other farsighted in the century prior. But the rest of us? The hoi polloi. Do we know?   *   That the system we live in. And celebrate. This veritable ‘best of all possible worlds’. Progress, Development, and all the rest of the self-validating cataract of cliches that sensurround our senses making us near insensible. Is a Death Machine.   *   Just 400 years of it. And everything around us is dying. Flora, fauna, all of it. Habitats dissolving, ecologies dissipating. The Planet itself, or that part which sustains life, in mortal stress.   *   And we? How about us? Exalted King Vampires astride the top of the food chain. Masters of the Universe. How are we doing?   *   What is left of culture, society, civility , in the heartlands of where the Great Game originated ? Sociopaths and psychopaths rule the roost, with societal empathy derided, disdained, and debauched. War criminals govern us. Billionaires buy and sell our fragmenting Republics with brazen impunity. An Amoral Society (mark the oxymoron) is the latest contribution in the long-drawn saga of EuroModernism (European Modernism). We live in, and by, dread alone. And all around us Human Devolution spreads its dissolute wings.   *   The civilisation-mongers that claim(ed) to be paragpns of reason and liberty are racing, joyously, even tumultously,to raze the world (the same way it began?) with a Big Bang. Cannon and chicanery had them seize the world, once upon a time. The very same twin tools now stand put to end it. Bravo!   *   What price now the hoary liturgy of liberte? Freedom? What a concept! Yes, we are become ‘free’. From the prospects of even mere continuity. In a fact-free , conscience=free ,value-free, world. We are free: free-wheeling , free-dealing, Zombies run amok.   *   Unabashedly, Post-Truth, Post-Morals, and Post-Human. That is the Collective West today. The First World, no less. First in a world they have securely ensured will not last.   *   Yes, they are inveterate, intrepid, fighters for freedom. Yours and mine, that is: except we are trying to preserve it – from their very onslaughts. I refer to the real autonomies of life: far more concrete than the sloganised memes of ‘freedom’.   *   Of course, they can claim no monopoly of barbarism. They have (had) plenty of competition. But no Others , in human history, have brought us, insouciantly, to the very edge of Exterminism, all the while preaching a meretricious Litany of Rights.   * What is it about EM (European Modernism) that has wrought this? Its ideology and praxis has deracinated the very roots of our humanity, silting the eternal founts of human affections – viz., family, kindred, and community that keep us sane – with the venal sludge of competitive cupidity, avarice, and accumulation, reducing us to atomised, anomie and angst ridden , solitary, adversarial, asocial individuals ever swirling to

  (For Dr Kalyan Banerjee)   Let’s review European colonialism, as it evolved just a few centuries ago.   Who can make sense of it? I can’t. And I have studied it all my life. It defies reason.   *   Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, France, England, the early ‘Pioneers’. And many lesser ones we won’t mention. Cutting loose across the Non-European world. Genocide Slavery. Expropriation. Ecocide. Standard fare: on a multi-continental scale.   *   btw an estimated 56 million perished, owing to their exploits, i.e. roughly 10% of the extant global population, as early as 1600 C.E. The Pre-Columbian native peoples are estimated to have suffered about a 90% mortality rate. This Extinction Event (and there is no other way to describe it) is even said to have triggered a perceptible global cooling.   *   Wasn’t merely mass murder. ‘TWas also the unique gifts – that go on giving? – they brought with them to the New World: measles, smallpox, influenza and the bubonic plague.   *   Regrettably, it still goes on, if under more euphemistic nomenclature.. Today, in due decorum, we call it Development, Globalisation, International Trade, et. al.. The First World, they call themselves. Why not? It fits. They got there first, they looted first, they colonised first. Now you know how/why the West ‘pulled ahead’.   *   So, when Trump trashes African nations, he needs to reflect. Africa may or may not have ever been ‘poor’ (poverty is relative, deprivation is not) : but the West got rich by seizing its resources, wholesale. The Berlin Conference of 1884 sealed its fate. 90 percent Of Africa was, by 1914, under Western occupation, with only Liberia and Abyssinia outside of it. And they are still at it, in that unfortunate continent.   *   The looting of India, also, was classic, even epic in scale and scope. Its fabled wealth was what drove adventurers like Columbus to go expeditioning. Yet, until recently ,it was treated as no more than a beggar nation, by precisely those that beggared it. And yet, as late as 1750, China’s share of global GDP was 33 percent, India’s 24.5 percent, whilst the combined share of Britain and the US was 2 percent. Read that last bit over again: the UK & the US , together, amounted to but 2 %. In effect, their Seven League Boots were donned much later. So , what happened? The Brits happened, to India (and elsewhere) , as did many of its European clones.   *   Fast forward. Since WW2, just the US alone – never mind other European nations- is estimated responsible for over 20 million deaths in the Non-European world. Over 1 million Iraqis slain not so long ago, on specious charges 1 million dead. When the late Secy of State Madeleine Albright was queried whether 250,000 Iraqis babies dead was worth the removal of Mr Hussein, she said, without batting an eyelid , it was. That one single statement sums up

  (for Joss)   Of all the fests I’ve heard or seen   Best of all is Halloween   *   So hey hey what do you say what’s for Halloween today   Bombs for Taiwan missiles for Ukraine   Coups in Sudan or another base in Bahrain   *   Always a trick treats are hard to find   Yet its always a chiller send shivers down the spine   *   Halloween is here kids run out to play   But what the morrow will bring no one dares to say     [© R.Kanth 2022]   Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)