not truly warm

 the sun tells quite a story but it lies

if you think it is warm then you're a dope

autumn is pleasant only to the eyes

 

there are so many things we must advise

that you should follow since you have to cope

the sun tells quite a story but it lies

 

each of our choices this we must surmise

has led you to the very end of rope

autumn is pleasant only to the eyes

 

thus you have seen the old year as it dies

winter is coming and there's time to mope

the sun tells quite a story but it lies

 

white clouds against the pale blue of these skies

urge us just to give up and to elope

autumn is pleasant only to the eyes

 

someone might speak of harvest as the prize

of fruit and seed and coming spring of hope

the sun tells quite a story but it lies

autumn is pleasant only to the eyes

A plea to my readers

 On Tuesday, November 4, American voters will be asked to make a choice unprecedented since 1932: between the politics of convention and the politics of hope. We are on the brink of the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, and sliding rapidly into the abyss. The entire Western world is economically overstretched, in large part because of the profligate policies followed by George W. Bush and those around him. The United States is mired in two wars in Asia, neither of which has a simple end-point visible in the near future.

Over the past eight years, the United States has been governed by a cabal – there is no other word for it – that has wasted the seed-corn. It has ignored good science, it has devastated the good-will built up by its predecessor administration, it has elevated bigotry over common sense, ideology over reality, loyalty over decency.  Senator McCain, for all of his sudden conversion to populism, promises nothing different. In fact, in his embrace of the know-nothing ideologism represented by the winking, smirking governor of Alaska, he promises the same policies in a skirt and a Vera Wang leather jacket.

A man who cannot tell the difference between a Zeiss planetarium projector and an overhead projector, whose response to economic crisis is empty gimmickry and gimcrack phraseology does not have the skill or the sense to lead the United States, or the world (which is the job of the president of the United States, after all) in these critical times.

Barack Obama has faced the stormiest electoral campaign of recent times with calm and humour. He has demonstrated, time and again, real understanding of the world, wisdom and humour. His message is hope. It is time for change from the politics of oligarchy, dishonesty, and greed. If you live and vote in the United States, Barack Obama is the only sane choice for president.

herding in the tropics

 a sudden torrent washes out the road

my father speaks of an all-island rain

as little lakes expand across the plain

 

wet cattle move but slowly with a goad

thick mud resists and does not answer pain

a sudden torrent washes out the road

 

no one has told me how to read this code

nor how to hold a calm and even strain

in this wet season norms have turned arcane

a sudden torrent washes out the road