Nineteen Fourteen

Nineteen Fourteen

It is twenty twenty two

                But in Ukraine

                                It is nineteen fourteen.

Russia has unleashed

                A reign of terror

                                Like we have rarely seen.

In Chechnya and Syria

                They practiced

                                Their Evil art.

Firing shells and missiles

                To blow

                                The cities apart.

They are digging trenches

                One again

In European cities civilisation

                Is down the drain.

Putin is gaily singing

                Death’s refrain.

It is twenty twenty two

                But in Ukraine

                                It is nineteen fourteen.

Russia has unleashed

                A reign of terror

                                Like we have rarely seen.

Opher 22.4.2022

We like to think of ourselves as civilised – but we’re not.

We like to think we are intelligent – but we’re not.

We like to think that human civilisation has become advanced – but it hasn’t.

We like to think we have become wise and sophisticated – but we haven’t.

We’re still the same aggressive, violent, stupid, greedy, paranoid apes we’ve always been. We’re still the short-sighted idiots who fight.

Everything is a thin veneer.

Poetry – How much is too much?

How much is too much?

How much for a whale?

How much for a tree?

How much for a chimpanzee?

Everything has a price.

Everything has a cost.

We never notice what is lost.

A little bit here.

A little bit there.

Big losses everywhere.

It’s not right.

Everything is wrong.

We’ll only miss it when it’s gone.

Opher 10.5.2021

It is a slow relentless attrition. You only notice what has gone after a period of time.

Nature has no space.

The hedges and the trees, the ponds and streams, the trees and woods are taken one by one.

A chimp here. A whale there.

We value nothing.