poems Archives - Opher's World

The Truth – a poem

Posted on August 19, 2018 by Opher

The Truth

The truth is usually grey.

It doesn’t stand up to the light of day.

What appears to be absolute

Rapidly falls into fierce dispute,

As the truth falls prey

To political decay.

Opher 19.8.2018

I wrote this for all those people who take their news from all those fake sites out there on the web, busy pushing their propaganda: for those who take the mainstream news as gospel; for those who really believe that they have the only handle on what is really going on.

This is tribal.

This is all lies.

Poetry – Our layer in the Rocks – a palaeontology poem to our demise

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Opher

Our Layer in the Rocks

For some strange reason we always think that things will go on the way they are; against all the odds. Things always change.

We get caught out every time. The unexpected always knocks us for six.

We seem to think we can do what we like with impunity and there will be no repercussions. That is madness. There are repercussions to everything.

As we go around trashing the planet for fun or greed we assume that we will be able to carry one forever. Who needs the plants and bees? Who needs the wilderness? So what is there are no chimpanzees?

Yet we are part of the web.

We are busy laying down the foundations of our own demise. As with all the other fossils we will end up as a layer in the rocks. How thick and how important will be determined by what we do in the near future.

If we are intelligent we will look after our life-support system.

This poem is a little pessimistic but I wrote it in hopes that we will wake up and deal with the mess we are creating before the mess deals with us. I don’t want to be in that layer just yet and I’d like it to be much thicker.

Our Layer in the Rocks

I like our layer in the rocks

With all my kith and kin.

I’d have liked to see it thicker

But we chose to make it thin.

It resembles a museum

Of all we could achieve.

But no sooner had we started

Than it was time for us to leave.

Opher 18.5.2016

My poetry books are not like ordinary poetry books – they are works of diatribe and prose that explain my thoughts and ideas. The poetry is only a part.

If you would like to purchase one of my poetry books you can do so from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1463865178&sr=1-2-ent

New Poetry book – Poems and Peons – The cover.

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Opher

This is the cover. The shape of the book means that you do not get the whole painting but I think this came out OK. It is very abstract and colourful.

Do you like it?

Poetry – The machine – a poem about the world

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Opher

The machine

The world is run by people who do not care. They do not care about the misery they create. They do not care if their profits are based on exploitation, starvation and despair. They do not care if their methods leave instability, war and chaos. They simply do not care.

All they care about if the bottom line, how to earn more and maximize their profits.

It helps if there is chaos. It helps if there is inequality. There is a market to exploit. Desperate people take lower wages. The powerful require protection. There are weapons to be sold.

These people provide the funds for our politicians. They own our media. They lobby the government. Without their support the politicians are unelectable. They control the system.

They control the money markets that are the blood our economies. Without their investment we become bankrupt.

The control the price of commodities and manipulate the markets without regard to the misery that might be created.

The world is run by a machine of faceless, uncaring, selfish, greedy men who are simply doing business.

There is enough to go around.

There is a better way of organizing the world.

It does not have to be like this.

We could solve all the problems and make it fairer.

But we are driven by the desire to be one of them.

The lottery is not a victimless crime.

The machine

There is a machine that grinds away day and night

Sucking our essence into its claws,

Equipped with clamps, suckers and syringes

To suck the life out of our pores.

It is an engine that never stops

That runs on control

Manned by faceless, nameless men

With selfish, greedy roles.

We are fed into its guts

Into an all-consuming void

That leeches all our dreams

Leaving mindless androids.

Somnambulistic dreams and phony fun,

To distract us from the truth,

That we are being milked and then confused

To disguise the living truth.

A processing plant

Of computerized precision

That saps all intent

And robs decision.

The world is run for profit

Without regard to pain or price,

As the short term interests are met

Putting up the cost of rice.

We may die in war or starve

In slums amongst the sewage and disease

But somewhere in a villa

The cause relaxes, smiles and is at ease.

Opher 25.11.2015

Poetry – Strap on You’re Gone

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Opher

Strap On You’re Gone

There is a religious dogma that promotes hatred, intolerance and the doctrine that killing innocent civilians will make them martyrs who will gain paradise.

That is all contrary to everything I believe.

I believe in a pluralistic society where people who hold different beliefs are respected. Where people can hold whatever beliefs they choose without discrimination and live in harmony with other people who hold other beliefs. I believe in democracy, freedom, respect, empathy, equality and love.

I believe the indoctrination, hatred and lies that cause people to strap on bombs, shoot innocent people, fly planes into buildings and saw peoples’ heads off, is evil.

There can be no excuse for callous, cold-blooded murder. That is insanity. No god would condone that.

War is a terrible thing. Innocent people get caught up in it. To target them is a war-crime. The people who target civilians should be locked up.

I wrote this poem to express some of those emotions.

Strap On You’re Gone

Strap on Cop out Islam

The bomb Devout Wham Bam

Then gone No doubt Imam

Not long Coward

No song Gun fired

Just wrong Expired

Not cool Jihad Bad taste

The fool So mad Disgrace

No school So sad Just waste

Believed No brain

Deceived In pain

Aggrieved God’s name

So cruel Bye wife Savage

Bomb mule No life No age

A tool Slice knife In cage

Sadist Preached at

Not missed Screeched at

Unkissed Teached at

Doctrine Wants more In hood

No sin Encore He would

Tout fin Still sore No good

Power Attack

Cower Hack hack

Sour Whack whack

Heaven? Dogma God’s will

For when? Too far To kill

Amen? Death star Pig’s swill

Opher 25.11.2015

Poem – Out of darkness – A poem about hope from terrorism.

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Opher

Out of Darkness

I am angry. I cannot understand the mentality of anyone who believes it is not only OK, but a commandment, to heartlessly shoot some unarmed person, to rape a child, to slice a throat. I cannot comprehend.

Religious fundamentalism dehumanizes people.

There is no love, tolerance or freedom. It is toxic.

Religious fundamentalism, whether it is from the god-fearing Christians of the Southern States of America or the Jihadist sadists of the Arab Muslims, is a medieval insanity.

It is enough to make you hate.

It is sufficient to make you want to drop bombs, destroy and exterminate.

The thoughts of the poor innocents being tortured and slaughtered is as bad as anything the Nazis did. The fascism of of the Caliphate is beyond humanity.

Yet it is humanity. Cruelty is what we are good at. Callousness is our trademark. We care about nothing. We rape the planet with impunity.

We are all savages.

I know that dropping bombs kills innocent people too. It traumatizes and alienates. It twists minds. For every savage killed two jump up to replace them. The traumatized are broken.

The only way forward is education, love and cure. Those that hate need the treatment of friendship and love.

We should drop love bombs.

Out of Darkness

You don’t banish dark

Without light.

You don’t banish hate

Without love.

You don’t build a better world

Without tolerance.

You don’t believe in evil

Because it is written.

You don’t allow anger

To make you hate.

Let us bring

The love, light and tolerance.

There is a better way.

Opher 14.11.2015

Poetry – Education means fun! I think it’s being stifled!

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Opher

Education means fun!

Education is about expanding the mind, opening the floodgates and letting the wonder in. It is the greatest and most fulfilling experience a million miles away from the punitive classroom with its regurgitation of facts.

Education is fun.

Education is discovery, exploration and play.

It is sharing, fulfilling, helping and understanding.

Everybody wants some.

Nobody wants that sterile memorizing of turgid facts for the sake of tests. They want to learn facts because they enjoy finding out things.

Education is enjoyable. It is creative. It is about wonder and awe.

There is nothing better than that wide-eyed expression on a student’s face when they’ve seen something that lights them up. That’s education.

So throw away all the stats and the clipboards and make a big bonfire on the field. Rip up the Ofsted guidelines and replace them with flair and individuality.

No more turgid facts – more fun!

Education means fun!

Truth and fun,

Questioning,

Creativity

And exploration’s thunder,

All mixed up

Together

In a gooey ball

Of wonder.

Throw out the checklists and

The tick box culture,

And the observation nightmare

Hovering like a vulture.

Learning is great

Everybody wants some

But nose to the grindstone

Becomes rather loathsome.

Discovery and excitement

A wide-eyed sigh

That’s the core

Of learning

Along with

Wow! And Why?

It’s fun!

Education should be fun!

Opher 11.11.2015 (Thanks Plato)

Poetry – Hunter Gathering – a sigh for the ancient past.

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Opher

Hunting and Gathering

I sometimes long for that more primitive life which we once had; living in harmony with our environment. Having the knowledge of how everything fits together; understanding the plants, animals and seasons; living on our wits; hunting and gathering. Where life is precious and always on the line and death is something to be lived with.

I know there is a tendency to romanticize. That the reality is harsh. There were periods of terror, danger, disease, violent death, hunger, cold and fear. But I still crave for those days.

I crave for the brotherhood and trust of hunting in teams. I would like to live more naturally with my environment; to pit my wits against the predators; to have skills that are the difference between success and failure.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting and gathering in the endless wilderness

Where life is fleeting

And survival a guess.

Pitting wits against the fang and the claw

When hunger is reality

And we always want for more.

Solving problems looking for patterns in the wind

Where knowledge is the difference

Between death and living.

Creating a universe from out of the void

Where mystery has no answer

And sense must be destroyed.

Taming the elements and defeating every threat

Creating divinities to mystify

And technology to avoid the sweat.

Ending with a habitat devoid of everything

With no threats left

And no hunter gathering.

Opher 7.11.2015

Poetry – Once so big – a poem about ecology and destruction.

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Opher

Once so big

I’m looking at the massive destruction of the Indonesian rainforest. I see the fires storming through, the palls of smoke. I see the smoking stumps left behind and the scorched soil.

What I don’t see are the fried creatures who couldn’t escape, the terrified animals who were traumatized, the homeless creatures driven out from their homes, the desperate search for a home in the reduced habitat by the fleeing survivors.

I couldn’t see the carbon dioxide released into the air or the oxygen that will never be produced.

Outside I hear a group of drunks singing raucously as they stagger obliviously home without a care. Their lives are lived in a plastic and concrete universe and they really do not care. They do not see what is happening and they are not interested.

They will no doubt get on a plane to travel to the other side of the world for a stag night. They will walk along tarmac from bar to bar and never see a living thing. To them this will not matter at all.

They disparagingly call people like me ‘tree-huggers’.

I borrow a word from John Cooper Clarke to describe them – TWATS!!

Once so Big

Once so big, now so small.

Once so empty, now so full.

Green and noisy

Chattering with calls

Chirping and buzzing

Now motorways and walls.

Voices laughing

Staggering along

In the silent night

Just a raucous song.

Once so lively, now so still.

Once so healthy, now so ill.

Brown and smoky

Scoured and clean

Sterilised and barren

From what might have been.

Opher 7.11.2015

Poetry – A history of struggle – a poem about inequality.

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Opher

A History of Struggle

Within Britain we have achieved a level of social justice. Nobody should starve or go without a roof over their heads, though I’m sure some still do. There is a minimum wage and health and safety to ensure reasonable working conditions. We have education and health care. Even the poorest enjoy a reasonable standard of living.

But I cannot help thinking that we only get the minimum that the establishment think they can get away with. The fat cats at the top scoop off the profits in inordinate amounts.

If we look globally we see an even greater inequality. While the corporations run things for their own ends, to maximize their profits, billions are on the starvation level and the natural world is blitzed.

It is only ever through social struggle, paid for with blood, that we have ever wrested power, better conditions or better pay from the wealthy.

I do not believe the establishment cares a jot. They have no compassion. They will screw you if they can.

A History of Struggle

There is a history of struggle

Disguised

By a thin veneer

Of adequacy

That controls everyone

In a web of narrow

Expectation.

There’s a small trough of cream

And an endless desert

Of excrement.

As the few wet whiskers drip

While billions of parched throats

Croak

In futile hope.

Opher 30.10.2015