Poetry – The Invisible Thief

Posted on by Opher

The Invisible Thief

Bread and pizza,

Jobs and careers,

Stolen from mouths and futures

By an invisible thief.

Shops shut,

Businesses closed,

Economies in ruins

With no safety net beneath.

Opher – 5.4.2020

The terrible thing about this pandemic is the long-term affect it is going to have on peoples’ lives.

When we come out of the other end will we still have all the shops? The businesses? The opportunities?

How many people will have lost their jobs?

How many people will be looking for the next meal?

Does this mean a return to austerity?

Are the public services going to have another round of devastation?

Are the poor going to get hammered some more?

It looks like a thief has stolen a chunk of the future.

Poetry – The Invisible Prison Guard

Posted on by Opher

The Invisible Prison Guard

The blue summer sky

                And the new green shoots,

The fresh air

                Tasting new routes,

Seen through bars of the cells

Of our home;

Looking out at a land

Through which we no longer roam.

On the air

And in anything we touch

There’s an invisible prison guard

Keeping us in our hutch;

Away from families

And lost to friends

Until we heal

And the country mends.

Opher – 5.4.2020

Isolation is hard. We are gregarious creatures. We like meeting up with each other.

Fortunately we live in the countryside which means we can get out for walks. It doesn’t stop it feeling claustrophobic though.

Looking out through the window at an empty street. It feels that life has become restricted. Our world has shrunk.

Out there the sun is shining. It looks welcoming. It is hard to imagine that there might be invisible droplets of death lurking in the breeze.

We are who we pretend to be.

Posted on by Opher

A short Story – A little Early

Posted on by Opher

A little Early

I selected my pale green jeans with the bottom seams unpicked, threads pulled out to create a fringe that spilled out over my Cuban-heeled Chelsea boots. The colourful patches I had ineptly sewn on were half hanging off, but that was cool. They were my style; my unique creation. I alternated them with the dark blue flared jeans whose low hipster cut fitted me so perfectly. I only had the two pairs but that was fine. Today was definitely one for patches.

I donned the olive denim shirt with the button-down collar and epaulettes that I had bought in France. Pretty snazzy.

My hair was now below my shoulders and looked nothing like the photo on my application. My bushy sideburns had mutated into a full-grown beard.

I looked in the mirror and nodded. The deputy head Miss McLaughlan would be having kittens. She’d perennially been on my case, but all that was behind me. I had moved on. Miss McLaughlan was nowhere.

Jimi Hendrix played the last notes of ‘Hey Joe’. With a hiss and loud click the stylus moved to the centre, lifted and swung to the side. There was a clunk as the last single dropped into place. The stylus arm moved with a jerk, paused and descended on the new disc with a clunk. Following a brief hiss Cream boomed in with ‘I Feel Free’. I had two and a half minutes to be out of the house.

Picking up my white silk scarf of the chair I casually draped it around my neck. For a moment I paused, analytically surveying my tiny room, wistfully assessing the entire content of my life summed up with the shelf of books, the piles of albums and heaps of singles, I nodded. It felt like I had already left it behind.

Jerking out of my reverie I retrieved my black fur-lined leather airman jacket from the floor, slipped into it and rearranged the scarf. I liked it streaming out behind me, mingling with my hair in the slipstream – a magnet for the speed-cops. I seemed to live at the cop shop endlessly presenting my documents, but that was how it should be – the price you paid.

Collecting my helmet from the corner of the room, scarlet with the orange and yellow flames, I closed the door behind me just as the track ended.

Weaving through the London traffic I made good time, bumping up the kerb outside the main entrance, kicking the footrest down, swinging my leg over, I stood and removed my helmet. Looking up at the old soot-stained frontage of the Victorian building I felt a flutter of nervousness overlaid with a wave of elation.

Walking through the entrance I was confronted with a poster for Roy Harper pinned to the notice-board. It felt like an omen. I found myself grinning inanely. Everything felt right.

My terms or no terms.

Glancing up at the big clock over the reception – twenty-five minutes to go.

Opher Goodwin – 500 words

The Corona Diaries – Day 727

Posted on by Opher

I still have covid!!

Here in Yorkshire we are recovering from storms Dudley and Eunice and now find ourselves cloaked in snow!!

The symptoms of this disease evolve! It started a week ago when I was feeling groggy. By the Monday I was feeling sufficiently off colour to take a test. It was negative. It wasn’t until Wednesday that the tests showed positive.

Yesterday I was feeling a lot perkier but in the evening I started getting a headache. I took some paracetamol and went to bed a little earlier than usual. I slept well but woke up with that same headache. I’ve been feeling tired and muzzy all day. I wrapped myself up and have been reading and playing some Bob Marley – appropriately the album Survival.

The virus appears to have disrupted my sinuses. I feel very bunged up with a stream of mucus. Not nice – like having a bad cold. I’m not coughing too much – every now and again – but I’m sneezing more.

The good news is that the sore throat has gone and I no longer have that metallic taste.

I’ve received a number of photos of Captain Beefheart for the book and am hoping for some more. I think the task of photoshopping them, putting captions on etc can wait for next week when I’m feeling a lot better.

Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, Boris Johnson, our lying clown, is still hanging on. He’s sent his report in to the police. I wonder if he’s lied to them too? I don’t see why not. It’s his default mode.

He’s like a chameleon changing colour madly and trying to be everything to everyone. One minute he’s standing up at COP26 lecturing the world on cutting CO2 then taking a flight back to London in a private jet for a reunion. Now he’s having RAF fighters flying the length of the country just so he can have a photo op in the cockpit. Talk about hypocrisy and stupidity.

There is not a shred of leadership. All he does is pose and posture. None of the cabinet will ever appear on any news show where they have to answer questions. Johnson will never appear without a tight script. He seeks out high-profile photo ops in High-Vis or autocue reports where he pontificates about Ukraine.

If cornered he hides in fridges.

The Tories know that their record and policies do not hold up. If they are scrutinised the lies and facts do not stack up.

They treat the public as fools.

They simply say crap like ‘He got Brexit done’ without any analysis of the immense damage done to our economy – to the tune of £30 Billion a year – or the horrendous red tape, delays and costs. They hope that most idiots will take it at face value and think the idiot has done a good job. They’ll forget about all the broken promises – cash bonanzas of £350 million a week! Easier trade! No effect on Ireland! Ready-Made deals with other countries. All lies.

They say crap like ‘He got Covid done!’ without any mention of having one of the worst death rates in the world and one of the worst-hit economies. 180,000 dead people, and their families, might contest his bullish nonsense. He dumped covid patients into care homes, locked down too late, opened up too soon, brought in lots of silly schemes – Like Eat Out to Help Out (obviously with a glance towards helping out undertakers). Now we’re relaxing all rules and restrictions while the disease is still running riot. I know more people with covid than ever before!

No wonder they won’t appear anywhere. If people start delving into their record and policies the whole maggot-ridden edifice crumbles. They are a nasty disaster who have been sleazily profiteering. How many of this government have been lining their own pockets? They’ve been taking from the poor and public servants to give to the rich. They’ve never had it so good! The Cayman Islands are groaning under the weight.

So, in this pandemic that is over there were supposedly another 47,481 new cases with 158 deaths. Not that we can trust this data. I bet the majority of cases are unreported!! I also bet the deaths are higher! Covid causes all manner of problems. People die of other things that covid caused.

It is sickening to read about the profiteers who have abused the system many of whom are the recipients of the governments illegal PPE VIP channel. Sarah and Richard Stoute just bought themselves a £30 million villa in the Caribbean to go with their yacht. They made £1.85 billion. It’s obscene.

We are paying millions just to store badly made useless PPE.

Corruption and sleaze – law-breaking. Why aren’t people in court??

Stay safe!!

The chancer rules!! We’re in the age of insanity. The age of conspiracy, lies and profiteering!!

Leadership!!

Posted on by Opher

Leadership is about explaining, giving direction and inspiring action – not silly photo ops in cockpits or Hi-Vis jackets and then hiding in fridges.

A leader should be clear, decisive and hold up to scrutiny!

How have we ended up with this bumbling idiot who avoids any place where he is likely to be questioned???

Boris Johnson – the Clown!

Posted on by Opher

How on earth were people fooled by this incompetent entitled nincompoop??

The grand old Duke of York.

Posted on by Opher

The wheels are coming off the establishment.

We have a government, floundering in lies, sleaze and corruption, subject to police enquiries and parliamentary enquiries for law-breaking.

We have the monarchy imploding into scandals of paedophile rings, corruption and intrigue.

It is like a corner of the veil has been lifted. We can peek at a world where this ruling 1% live by different rules. While we are subject to law and live our quiet little lives, they indulge in a licentious secret life.

On the face of it, they present a front of conservative respectability – all very prim and proper – all grey, boring and honourable – but behind that disguise, it’s a seething cauldron of drugs, sex and wild parties. They indulge their every whim. It’s party time! Laws, morals and codes of behaviour are for the little people. Behind that curtain, it’s a different world.

No doubt they’ll plug up the holes pretty soon, paper over the cracks and replace the veneer. It’ll go back to being secret!!

    Today’s Music to keep me SsSSsaAAAnnnNeee in Isolation – Bob Marley

    Posted on by Opher

    We’ll spice the house up with a dash of Reggae!!

    Poetry – Intrigue and Lies

    Posted on by Opher

    Intrigue and Lies

    The land of the free

                    Is full of intrigue and lies,

    Fake news,

                    Hitmen and spies.

    Where ends justify means

    And there are just ‘hows’

    And no ‘whys’.

    In the land of the free

                    The masses are controlled

    With media gold

                    Misinformation

                                    And people

    Who are bought and sold.

    To find the real truth

                    We read between the lines,

                                    Follow the money

    And read the signs;

                    Watching with whom

    The enemy dines.

    Opher – 5.4.2020

    The intrigue, lies and disinformation that exists in this constant struggle between nations as they vie for power and supremacy.

    I wish it would all end. Humans are so barbaric.

    It’s like watching two dogs fighting to be leader of the pack.

    Spies, dirty tricks, computer hacks, assassinations, media lies, propaganda. There’s no end to the secret war that is waged between countries – or the war that countries wage against their own people.