Good News!!! A New Poetry Book!!

Posted on by Opher

I know, judging from the large amount of likes, that a lot of you have been enjoying the poetry I have been putting out.

The reason that I have been doing this is that I have been collecting my recent poems together for a new compendium. It is my 9th anthology of poems. As those that have been following know it has a lot of my political and environmental poems. Hence I have titled it:

Diddles Riddles Envirocribbles and Political Tribbles

It is in the process of being published and should be with us shortly in both electronic and paperback versions.

In the meantime if you would like to catch up on my back-catalogue then kindly check them out on the following links:

Amazon UK Opher Goodwin Author Page:

Amazon USA Opher Goodwin Author Page:

The Land of the Free – a poem about the division in the world.

Posted on by Opher

The Land of the Free

 

In the land of the free one is forced to agree

You choose your side – split nationwide

 

One side for love – one side for hate

One side for help – one side for wait!

 

With or against – no compromise!

Rabbles and mobs – victims and spies!

 

Somewhere between the venomous words

A small voice has slipped between the vowels.

Children have become the bargaining chips

In a global game of roulette.

The same old winners spin the wheel

And claw in the rewards.

The same old robber barons

Have shed their armour and put on disguise.

They run the show without need of a sword

Just a media full of lies.

 

Opher 16.6.2018

 

 

The world has become divided as we lurch towards another wave of fascism. A new batch of populist leaders have been drumming up division, ratcheting up hatred and preying on the fears of many. The mass migrations have enabled them to harness the fruits of Islamophobia.

Behind this charade the same old establishment reaps the rewards and gain power and wealth. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

Instead of dealing with the roots of the problem they are happy to gain from the symptoms.

 

 

What We Have – a poem of fear and desperation.

Posted on by Opher

What We Have!!

 

What we have we keep!

Holding back the tide!

Creating problems

Planet-wide!

 

We stand together

In this fight

Against the desperate

In their plight!

 

If we treat them nice

More will come for what’s on offer!

Lock them up! Beat them up!

Make them suffer!

 

Opher 16.6.2018

 

 

It seems to me that there is an attitude of embattled defense. We feel we deserve to hold on to what we have. We are rounding up the wagons against the encircling Indians. It’s a mentality!

I think it’s time we started thinking globally and started solving the problems that are creating mass immigration:-

Overpopulation

Gross inequality

Climate change

War

Unemployment

Economic disaster

Poverty.

They are all easily solved. They have been created by selfishness and greed.

Who can blame people who just want a better life?

The politicians have used the problems to further their own careers.

In The Land of Darkness – a poem about today.

Posted on by Opher

In The Land of Darkness

 

In the land of new darkness

You cannot see a friend.

In the gloom of fear

Terror looms around the bend.

Armed and wary,

Shoot first ask later,

Drown and cage,

Through the eyes of a serial hater.

 

Opher 6.6.2018

 

 

I feel that the fear of immigration and terrorism has created a tragedy. It has landed us with both Brexit and Trump.

The terrorists have won. They split us. They are gleefully watching us destroy ourselves.

Who would have believed that?

We trust nobody. Friend falls out with friend. Strangers are all potential terrorists. We have created fear and hatred that is cyclic. It regenerates itself.

Fascism is on the rise. It’s the thirties all over again. Just substitute Jew for Muslim. The wave of hate is heading towards war.

We live in a land of callousness and darkness.

Time for a bit of love!!!

Fake Memories – a poem about the truth.

Posted on by Opher

Fake Memories

 

Fake memories

Fake fears

Fake News

Fake tears

 

Rousing the faithful

Feeding the lies

Inflaming the emotions

Deaf to the cries

 

False truth

False fed

False economy

Falsely led

 

Deliberately stoked

For selfish gain

Cynically oblivious

To the generated pain

 

Fake news feeding real crimes

Fake smiles for our times

Fake sincerity for personal gain

Fake compassion masking real pain

 

Real people hypnotised

Following blindly

The veiled disguise.

Ignoring all the shouts

Of the truly wise.

Led up the garden path

That’s built of where’s and why’s.

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

How to pick your way through the exaggerations and lies that are trotted out to frighten us?

I think we are being manipulated for political reasons! Even our memories are fake!

We no longer believe experts and are instructed to ignore them. Now we believe the headlines of the tabloid press or choose to get our view of the world from dubious internet sources.

Truth is hard to find. Too many people have a vested interest in deceiving us.

In These Toxic Times – a poem about these days.

Posted on by Opher

In These Toxic Times

 

It’s all change in these toxic times

Where the ghosts of days that never were,

Like phantom fairy castles

Glimpsed in mists among the clouds,

Loom large on a pedestal of nostalgic lies.

 

The new guard, regaled in fascist clothing,

Unleash waves of fear and hatred

As purity is threatened by change.

But life is change and always has been

And the past was always badly stained.

 

The storm breaks upon the shore

As rollers pound the beaches,

Cities and people.

As the waves of ingress

Wash away compassion,

Wash away hope, care and love.

As the wind howls and ushers in

Gales of callous cruelty, despair and anger.

 

It’s all change in these toxic times

As the hate is channeled and directed.

There is no room for empathy, tolerance and welcome.

For the waves of threat are crashing against the cliffs

Bringing down the whole continent

As the hurricane blows away all we once stood for.

 

This country, built on compassion and a friendly smile,

Now a bastion of defiant fury

That puts children in the dog pound

Walls between us

And bombs amongst the crowd.

 

For centuries an island of hope,

A beacon to the oppressed,

A refuge from terror.

 

For it is all change in these toxic times

Where every stranger is the enemy.

The beacon has gone out.

The hope has been extinguished.

And the refuge become the prison.

 

The welcoming smile is now a snarl

The helping hand a fist

The door is built of razor wire.

The nostalgia for those pleasant times

Ironically based on fake memories.

 

Opher – 22.6.2018

 

 

I’m becoming nostalgic for those pleasant times before Brexit and Trump.

It seems to me that these two events have unleashed a great wave of division, fear and hatred. The politicians stir up the emotions for their own ends. Immigration and terrorism are used to promote their own political careers.

Immigration has been used as a tool. There has been too much but the fears are exaggerated in order to create fury as Islamophobia is deployed as a weapon.

Looking back through rose-tinted glasses to those olden days, (ignoring the racism, poverty, hardship, misogyny, disease and gross inequality) we are led to believe that things have got worse.

They haven’t.

The Last Sad Dregs – A poem about rebirth from the debris.

Posted on by Opher

The Last Sad Dregs

 

When the last sad dregs are drained

The glass will still retain a residue

No matter how thoroughly we sterilise.

It will just take time.

 

When everything is finally gone

It will come back.

It has done so before.

But it is never the same.

 

Maybe next time

It will be even better.

The forms more perfect

The intelligence more pure

Unsullied.

Perhaps it will be

An improvement in every way?

All might agree that it was for the best.

 

Yet even if it were

That would not forgive us

For what we now do.

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

We are a huge ecosystem catastrophe relentlessly steamrolling nature into nonexistence.

Species after species crashes into oblivion as we seek profit and our numbers spiral.

When we are through and we have destroyed it all there will still be some left even if it is just a residual slime. Evolution will rebuild the spectrum given time.

The planet will once again be full of a myriad of creatures, the wails of sound and flash of colour. There will be creatures every bit as wonderful and exotic as what we now have. It just won’t be the same.

Maybe intelligence, real intelligence, will once again evolve. I don’t think they will forgive us for what we are doing.

Two Swifts Shrieking – a poem about loss

Posted on by Opher

Two Swifts Shrieking

 

Two swifts wheeling in the sky

Shrieking with delight –

Not missing their brethren?

 

In days not long gone

Those same skies

Were full of flocks of screaming swifts.

 

The air, now a desert,

Teemed with insects

That were scooped with such glee.

 

There was enough

For many swifts

To gorge themselves and feed their chicks.

 

Now those insects

Are hard to find

And the future is looking dim.

 

Do they now shriek with delight or horror?

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

It is so noticeable to me that the skies are emptying. We were so used to seeing the swifts, swallows and house martins, the filter feeders of the skies, putting on their aerial displays.

Where once there were flocks now they appear in pairs. The flocks have gone.

The skies that once buzzed with insects are empty. The insects have gone. There is no food.

The barns and house eaves that provided nesting sites are all knocked down, cleaned up and gone.

It is hard to believe the changes that have taken place in the space of one lifetime.

Were those two swifts really shrieking with delight! I feel they cry in desperation.

 

 

Beware the Shallow Men – a poem about the stupidity of people.

Posted on by Opher

Beware the Shallow Men

 

Beware the shallow men

Who life is full of nothing.

Within a world of wonder

They cavort with mere distraction.

 

Oblivious to all around

They reduce it all to trash.

Everything they touch mundane

And all the world diversion.

 

Beware all those with empty lives

Who do not see the splendour.

For whom a grain of wondrous sand

Is an annoying piece of dirt.

 

Beware the ones whose lives

Are based upon base profit.

Who fear and rip at everything

Oblivious to the destruction.

 

Beware the ones who count life cheap

But count themselves superior.

Who vandalise the forests

And steal the homes from others.

 

Beware the ones who cannot see

The wonder all around.

Who plunder and destroy

And so make themselves the poorer.

 

Beware the ones with cruel eyes

Who delight in causing pain.

They gain pleasure from suffering

And live to make things worse.

 

So beware the shallow ones

Whose lives are empty vessels.

For they will simply blind you

To the wonders all around.

 

Opher 25.6.2018

 

 

It seems to me that the world is full of shallow, thoughtless people who either do not see the destruction they wreak or do not care. Some enjoy inflicting pain, misery and despair on others. Why do we keep electing them?

 

 

What a pig’s ear the Tories have made of Brexit!

Posted on by Opher

Isn’t it obvious what they should have done? (Apart from not do it in the first place).

With something as momentous as this Theresa May should have formed a cross-party group and thrashed out what sort of Brexit we wanted prior to pushing the button and starting the clock going.

Why didn’t she?

The answer is also quite obvious – she put her own lust for power first, the Tory Party second and the country a very distant third.

May stupidly decided to go in with the hard-line Brexiteers even though she did not really think they were sane. It provided her with political survival. She then decided to trigger Article 50 in order to have that ticking clock so that she could keep her hopelessly divided party under control.

She gambled on the stakes being so high that they’d have to toe the line. She was wrong every step of the way. Result – mayhem.

What she didn’t realise was that they are not rational beings. They would rather see the country in ruins rather than give up their utopian vision – no matter how stupid and unachievable it was.

Now we are two years on and still unclear as to what Brexit we’re heading for. The country has been thrown into the turmoil of uncertainty, firms are bailing out, investment is stagnant, growth is moribund, the pound has dived and the Tory Party is in chaos.

Things could fold at any minute. We could have complete loonies like Rees-Mogg, Boris or Gove in charge or even the nauseous Hunt. What a prospect!

In all likelihood we will have a general election. What will that do to the process now that stupid May has triggered the end and we’ve just got months to go?

What a selfish idiot she has been.

At least Corbyn would step in with realistic plans and we might be able to resurrect a reasonable Brexit that would be detrimental to Britain but not the disaster that Rees-Mogg and the hard-right are having wet dreams about.

Looking at the options I say lets get that election out the way sooner rather than later and see if Corbyn can sort the mess out!