Poetry – Hibernation’s over

Posted on by Opher

Hibernation’s over

 

Hibernation is over!

We’re out from in our shell!

The sun’s peeping out

From over the top of the hill.

 

It was just a mirage.

We’re not really doing that well.

We weren’t oven-ready

Or as world-beating as hell.

 

We are behind the curve

Falling for Johnson’s hard-sell.

When will we emerge

From under his spell?

 

Opher – 8.8.2020

 

 

For all the cheerleading and enthusiasm, the soundbites and lifting of lockdown, we’re not doing anything like as good as we’re told.

We’re being lied to.

Johnson sells us a vision that isn’t true.

There is no magic 350 million a week. It was a lie, yet he continued to tout it around on his bus.

These trade deals with other countries are not a piece of cake.

There was no oven-ready Brexit.

There was no world-beating app.

There was no protective ring thrown around care homes.

It won’t all be over by Christmas.

We haven’t got a world-beating track and trace system.

We are not coming out of hibernation.

 

Dominic Cummings dreams up these snappy little soundbites and his puppet Johnson recites them ad nauseam (with a splatter of Latin thrown in to make him seem clever). Unfortunately, they are all lies.

They are all enthusiasm and bluster with no substance.

 

Those lies won him Brexit.

Those lies won him a big majority and gained him a Prime Ministership.

Those lies do not solve any problems what-so-ever!

Those lies have cost 46,000 lives.

 

Why is it that when the country’s crying out for a straight man, they send in the clown?

Poetry – The Scientist

Posted on by Opher

The Scientist

 

 

The scientist.

Pushing back the boundaries of knowledge,

Dispelling superstition.

 

The scientist.

Showing us that we are not

The centre of the universe.

 

The scientist.

Revealing that heaven is not in the sky

Nor hell beneath our feet.

 

The scientist.

Discovering the atom, harnessing electricity,

Changing the world.

 

The scientist.

Designing you and me

And challenging infinity.

 

Opher 8.8.2020

The Scientist.

 

In this populist age of new superstition fostered by power-seeking politicians, guided by self-serving interests, it is good to reflect that it is science, not religion, that has dragged us out of poverty and given us the wonders we now take for granted.

The populists, like Trump, seek to divide, to shake our faith in experts, history and scientists, to deride experts, promote fake news and claim that only they know the answers.

They promote conspiracies, undermine institutions and worship the god of profit. Nothing else matters.

The whole planet can be consumed just as long as their colossal bank balance keeps increasing.

Here’s to the scientists – the people who deal with reality and seek to answer questions – the people whose knowledge dispels myth.

Only they can bring us back out of this new Dark Age.

Poetry – A smile

Posted on by Opher

A Smile

 

A smile is much more than you think;

A smile is a snarl,

An act of aggression

Transformed into a greeting,

A sign of pleasure,

A welcome.

So human

To bare your teeth,

So duplicitous;

A disguise of true intent.

A smile

Reveals the true nature of humans;

Malevolent chimps,

Whose inclination

Is to control,

To intimidate

And destroy.

We love violence

And cruelty.

We do it with a smile.

 

Opher – 8.8.2020

Poetry – The Courtroom Farce

Posted on by Opher

This is based on the Christine Keeler affair, my experience as a juror, a witness at two trials, and the experiences of friends and a relative.

Justice is a lottery, a spectacle, a performance – there to create an illusion.

Someone may go down for a pint of milk while others remain untried after embezzling millions.

The Courtroom Farce

 

The courtroom and the judiciary –

An adversarial system,

A circus,

That does not bother itself

With establishing the truth.

It is only about winning.

The guilty are made innocent

While the innocent are sacrificed

In a system that is all for show.

 

In this lottery

Money talks.

As briefs find loopholes

And people are just chips

In the casino of learned words,

As we gamble

With the truth.

 

They talk of level playing fields,

That nobody is above the law,

And retribution falls on the mightiest,

But justice

Is but a game.

 

The charade is played out behind closed doors.

The spectacle is the tip

Of an iceberg

Under which it reeks

Of bribes, threats and corruption.

 

The biggest crooks

Rarely see the inside of a court,

Unless they are forced

By an unfortunate set of circumstances,

Or those who pull the strings

Want a show.

The odds are stacked.

 

Opher – 8.8.2020

Poetry – The Summer of 49

Posted on by Opher

The Summer of 49

 

I was born in the summer of forty nine.

Spent my childhood wild in the country.

Not a stream or pond I didn’t wade through.

I climbed every last tree.

I build my dens and played my games.

Together we all ran free.

When it came to life I had it sussed;

I wanted to run a menagerie.

 

Then came the magic sixties

And the music began to play.

There were girls, Kerouac and dreams

And that menagerie faded away.

I was captured by Dylan, Harper

And revolution and leapt into the fray.

For those were the days of idealism

Escape from the social tourniquet.

 

Then came the angry seventies

And the dream began to fade.

The age of Punk and riots

Marked a nihilistic decade.

I raised a family

And the bills had to be paid.

But I was writing down my words

And with lip-service to the game played.

 

In the eighties and nineties

I had my fun, with gigs, meals and sights.

With friends there was much laughter

As we put the world to rights.

There was a world of madness,

War and environmental plights.

There was a mighty battle raging

A time of nuclear fright.

 

Now in the twenty-first century

The damage is there to see.

Nature is being plundered

And we’re struggling for liberty.

All around is corruption

In the lands of the ‘free’.

The whole world is swamped with people

Living in poverty.

 

The politicians’ greed

Is stopping us from action.

They divide and rule

Creating warring factions.

But I’ve travelled the world

And seen through this distraction.

Populist division

Requires a positive reaction.

 

Looking back through time

I’ve had my fun and more.

With plenty of fulfilment.

I’ve opened many a door.

But the underlying heartaches

Still leave me feeling sore.

The catastrophe of the planet

Rocks me to the core.

 

I’d like to live long enough

To see us making progress.

Dealing with overpopulation

And making suitable redress.

To restore nature

In the beauty of her green dress.

So everyone is made happy

With an end to all this stress

 

Opher – 8.8.2020

I just wrote this. It is very rough and ready and requires a lot of work but I thought I’d share it anyway.

Poetry – How to rest easy

Posted on by Opher

How to rest easy

 

I can rest easier knowing

That there are great tracts of wilderness

Left untouched.

They give meaning

To life on this planet

And reinvigorate my spirit.

For these regions

Are the light of the world

On a planet

That, despite the drone of engines,

Is rapidly

Falling silent.

They give me hope.

When we come to our senses

Perhaps those areas of wilderness

Will act as a reservoir

To replenish

The life

We have destroyed.

 

Opher – 5.8.2020

Poetry – Faint Echoes

Posted on by Opher

Faint Echoes

 

Faint echoes of past cultures

Resound through our language.

Cultures long gone,

Decimated,

Conquered, enslaved and eradicated.

Tribal humans,

We plunder and destroy.

Extinction is slow.

We make it fast –

Bringing gifts

Of disease,

And advanced technology.

Like arrogant gods,

Believing ourselves superior,

Believing our rights

Are bestowed by gods from above,

We ransack, rape, torture

And destroy.

All that are left are the vestiges,

In words

That we have purloined

And now claim as our own.

 

Opher – 4.8.2020

Poetry – My Heart on Paper

Posted on by Opher

My Heart on Paper

 

This is my heart

On a piece of paper,

Dissected in words,

Sieved through

The ventricles

Of my brain,

Translated

From electricity

To ink.

Waiting

For you to restore

Them to electricity,

To extract the essence

And understand me

And my world.

 

Opher – 4.8.2020

Poetry – Who could understand you?

Posted on by Opher

Who could understand you?

 

The kings of experience they all did decide

To tie you to the rocks where the fat angels glide;

To feed you with bitumen and take you for a ride,

But just how far can they take you?

 

The grime-faced politicians all did smile

As they dressed you in plastic and walked you down the aisle

Past the concrete pillars painted with their bile

Who among them could ever reach you?

 

And you dreamed of castles, dragons and princes

As they fastened you to the block and began with the pincers

The hangman laughs as he studies you and winces

What news could they ever extract from you?

 

Innocent lady of the shopping mall

With a head full of brightly coloured cotton wool

Could anyone ever understand you?

 

Opher – 5.8.2020

Poetry – The Art of Spin

Posted on by Opher

The Art of Spin

 

It used to be a gentle art

Of arcing ball in summer sun;

To entice, and make the ball slide past bat.

It used to be a gentleman’s game

Of cunning and devious skill,

To delight and entrance.

As bowler sought to catch an edge,

To elicit a false shot,

To conjure a twist

Through an impossible angle

To strike pad or wicket.

 

Now it is a wicked lie

As devious scoundrels

Seek to deceive, to obfuscate the truth;

To lie and trick.

Instead of balls, they twist words.

They bury the truth

To create a falsehood.

These villains aim to confuse,

To hide reality behind a fog

Of invention.

In this ungentemanly game

Both we and the truth are victims

Of political conmen.

 

Opher – 1.7.2020