Poetry – Here Lies Lies

Posted on by Opher

Here Lies Lies

Here lies lies,

                Sacrificed on the altar of spin.

Here lies truth,

                Lost in the propaganda within.

Casualties of war

                As each side seeks to assert

Broadcasting lies

                To win in a world of hurt.

We’re all victims

                In the morass of untruth.

Believing lies

                We accept without proof.

All’s fair

                In love, politics and war.

Deceiving us

                As they break every law.

Here lies truth!

                Here lies lies!

Buried with the dead!

Opher – 7.4.2022

How can anybody believe what they are told? The truth is always manipulated. One has to read between the lies to see if we cannot glimpse the truth below.

We live in a world of spin, fake news and propaganda. All sides do it. They call it politics. It’s a world of lies.

The first casualty of war is the truth.

The media always has a political bias. Nothing is ever completely true.

NATO and the Ukraine appear whiter than white. They aren’t. NATO went back on promises and was after moving up to the borders of Russia. We would then have nuclear missiles close to Moscow. Were the missiles a threat? Were they a deterrent? Was it defensive or offensive?

Depends which side of the fence you sit.

Ukraine does have a number of extreme right groups who could be described as neo-Nazis. There is evident racism. But then there is in most European countries – look at the fascist Oban in Austria and Trump in America.

Can anything justify war? I don’t think so. Putin is a barbaric animal who needs trying for war crimes – not just here but in Chechnya, Grozny and Aleppo. Then we have war crimes committed by the USA and UK in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have the warmongering Iranians, Saudi Arabians, not to forget Bashir and the bastions of terrorism.

All war criminals should be tried.

Beware the black and white.

Unfortunately this distrust of politicians and the media has led to the propagation of conspiracy on the web. People are even more susceptible to the stupid propaganda flung out on the web. It’s worse than the media bias.

Hence we end up with lying Trump, lying Johnson, lying Bolsonaro and lying Oban. The whole populist movement is based on fake news and conspiracy. Lying is their trade.

But always, the first casualty of war is the truth.

Poetry – America – We need to talk!

Posted on by Opher

America – We need to talk!

America you need to listen to me!

I do not think you are being honest!

You are meant to be leading the free world!

What on earth is going wrong?

America, you are making me feel sick.

I worry about you.

You’ve become fake news.

You’ve lost all belief

Except in superstition and guns.

What is all this Deep State nonsense anyway?

America, you need to get your act together!

You are making a mess of things

And pissing off your friends.

America, do you really believe a billionaire

Cares about the poor.

Isn’t it obvious that he is using you?

America, I despair.

The beauty of your country is tainted.

You have become mean-minded, squalid

Violent, ugly and divided.

Whatever happened to your dream?

America, you were born out of ugliness,

Out of genocide and slavery,

But do you teach that in your schools?

Do you tell the real story of the Native Americans

And Africans?

Will you ever make amends?

America, why do you put butchers, warmongers

And slave owners on pedestals?

Why not artists and poets?

America, does this reflect your values?

America, I want you to listen.

Are you really the land of the free?

Is there freedom in the ghettos?

In working all hours to scratch a living?

In having no rights?

In being abused and used?

America, you have a strange idea of freedom.

Or is freedom something just for the wealthy minority?

America, where is your sense of fun?

Where’s the Jazz and Blues?

The Rock ‘n’ Roll?

The Black and White fusion?

America, are you heading back to the bad old days

Of lynching, of racism and slaves?

Do you really want walls?

Can you be happy with such gross inequality?

America, are you really letting the wealthy and powerful

Call all the shots?

America, I think it’s time you took your head out of the sand

And decided what sort of country you want to build;

An inclusive place or one built on division and hate.

America, I despair.

You are not being fair.

You’ve lost your direction.

America, you need to take a long hard look at yourself!

Are your schools educating

Or are you running on blind faith?

Are you all getting health-care

Or is it the survival of the richest?

Are you a country of opportunity?

Or a country of privilege?

Where did things go wrong America?

America, I am your friend, but you worry me.

Opher – 31.7.2020

I look at the political division being actively promoted and used by Trump and it is sickening.

Those divisions were always there – exacerbated by the North/South divide, by ignorance, religious superstition, poor education and the John Wayne mentality.

At times it feels as if America is permanently stuck in the Wild West where everything is solved with a gun, the bible is read daily (and used when needed but basically ignored), the good guys wear white, the bad guys wear black, injuns are savages and blacks are slaves.

But this is the 21st century and we know that things are a million miles away from that. There is no black and white, just shades of grey. The Native America culture was superior in many ways – particularly when it came to the environment, and black people are as important as anybody else.

It’s time the Wild West was put to bed. It wasn’t a very nice period of time.

Poetry – War

Posted on by Opher

War

Eating ice-cream in Vietnam,

Belgian chocolate in Ypres;

Sipping beer on the Killing Fields of Cambodia –

A damn sight better than blood and screams.

Sitting in a deserted pillbox

Surveying the beauty of the beach and sea

Through an oblong slit;

Walking through a forest of majestic unbroken trees

In the woodland at Vicksburg

Where thirty seven thousand men were blown to bits.

Photographing butterflies and birds

On the flowers on the battlefield of Culloden

Where two thousand suffered

The agonies of slashing wounds or death.

A damn sight better than being pierced by steel,

Slashed, smashed and shattered.

Then Hiroshima, Dresden, the London Blitz, the Crusades

And Jihad – What was it all for?

The IRA, Black Panthers, Weathermen and Baader Meinhof  –

Who won?

Shrapnel, chlorine, uranium, steel, bombs, bullets, missiles, napalm, knives, swords, machetes and indoctrinated will.

War

What is it for?

Enemies become friends.

Time changes everything.

Passions cool.

Nothing is gained.

Agony, blood, sacrifice and early death.

Such a waste.

Standing on the scene of such terrible carnage

One is reminded of the stupidity, tragedy and uselessness.

War

What is it for?

Eating ice-cream in Vietnam where Agent Orange destroyed so much, twisted thousands of lives and created nothing but misery, I was struck by the pointlessness and waste.

I would rather be eating ice-cream and photographing flowers.

Opher 4.8.2016

War

There is nothing quite as stupid as humanity. History gives perspective to everything. To stand on a battlefield and look around one sees nothing but stupidity.

Culloden was a beautiful meadow full of grass, flowers and shrubs on which the birds and butterflies flitted. Back in 1746 two armies charged each other with blind hatred. They slashed with swords and hacked each other to death. They inflicted terrible injuries and horrendous agony. They were driven by patriotic passion.

Vicksburg was the battle that was a major blow to the Confederacy. Men were shot and blown to pieces. Limbs were blown off. The mud was sticky with blood.

Hiroshima melted people alive. People stumbled out of the city with their skin dragging behind them like grotesque shadows. They were half cooked alive.

Now ISIS is using medieval methods to kill slowly to inflict the greatest agony. They burn people in cages, slowly drown people, slice their heads off, bury them alive, crucify them and slowly crush them.

War. What is it for? Time robs all of these maniacs of their purpose. Today Vietnam is a tourist trap, Scotland is part of the UK, the USA is united and Japan is a friend from which we buy our cars and TVs.

Tomorrow ISIS will be a dim distant memory. They will be remembered with disbelief and disgust. All their obscene ambition will have been seen to be pointless.

All those wars; all that blood; all that agony – all pointless! There was nothing that could not have been sorted out through intelligence and humanity! Jaw jaw – not war war – as Churchill said!

There are no easy answers or quick fixes. War is the last resort!