Yet more 53 and imploding Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

This is another short instalment of my stream of consciousness antinovel. I think it is thought-provoking and different:

53 and imploding 

Does death scare you?

            The universe is so big that our egos do not even have the significance of a speck of dust; our intelligence is laughable. From my perspective your Leah jet can’t get you there and your wealth can’t buy a single star. Your beliefs won’t gain you a second more and all your possessions will be passed down to others and decay.

            The only good thing is that one day all traces of us will cease to exist and our place in the history of the universe will be as if we had never breathed.

            All we have to play with is the present. We can build futures. We can stop suffering. We can care. We can make this second perfect. Surely that is a worthwhile aim?

I hear the ticking. Each tap on this keyboard could have been spent differently. I continue to tap until something more important comes along. I would like to see what that might be.

I would like to be happy. I continue to send reports from the termitarium. These are the sermons on the mound.

I am sitting at my computer in my room and tapping in the contents of my mind. Can you glimpse me between the words or is the person you think you’re seeing merely a shadowy fiction?

            The first rule is that whatever starts off in idealism usually ends up bogged down in practicality.

That is the way it is planned.

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Bukowski – The Beast

Posted on by Opher

Bukowski

The Beast

There’s a cage

And there’s a beast.

I choose to cage me.

Opher – 27.12.2019

I was thinking about Bukowski’s descriptions of himself as a child, as Henry. Bullied and afraid.

The world outside was vicious.

We all have a front we put on in the face of the universe. Charles chose to have a projection of decadence – extreme drinking, sex and smoking.

Yet he was isolated, apart and protective of an inner self.

Poetry – The disguise (For Bukowski)

Posted on by Opher

The disguise

Inside the house,

                Outside the house

                                I adopt the disguise of an ugly toad.

I pull on the coarseness,

                Adopt the crudity,

                                Swallow the poison,

Smoke the dynamite,

                Fuck, curse, fart and belch

                                                Scratch my fat belly,

                                And act the part,

While inside, hidden,

                From myself,

                                The lost kid is bullied

Forever,

                And I pour it all into

                                Poetry and prose

Like it’s real

                And it’s real.

The worse I behave,

                The more graphic the account,

                                The more revealing,

                                                The more extreme –

The more honesty and ugliness,

                The greater the adoration.

I am my disguise,

                It suits me.

                                I’m at home in the skin

Of a realist

                With no limits

                                                To what I might do,

Or its consequences.

                It’s primal.

                                It’s pornographic.

                                                It’s the vomit of reality.

When you pare it down,

                The essence

                                Reveals the core

                                                That is usually

                                                                Disguised.

Opher – 27.12.2019

I was influenced by a poem of Bukowski’s that I read a while ago in which he talked about how he kept his true self hidden and had developed this persona of hard living.

It affected me.

Bukowski on Art and Life.

Posted on by Opher

Dead People in Dead Streets – Bukowski

Posted on by Opher

“I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead: men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideals.”

~ Charles Bukowski, from “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993” (https://amzn.to/2UKlnfd)

May be a black-and-white image of 1 person and beard

Charles Bukowski a celebration of his 100th Birthday.

Posted on by Opher

Matt has produced two excellent high quality magazines celebrating Buk’s life.

(21) Tweets liked by Newington Blue Press (@newingtonblue) / Twitter

Poetry – Cigarette butts and beer cans

Posted on by Opher

Cigarette butts and beer cans

Grey paving slabs,
Cigarette butts in the cracks.
Daisies searching
For life
Among the boots and butts.

A worn brick wall.
A stunted tree;
Blackened, poking up,
Above.
Sorry
For existing.

Gobs of gum
Trodden
Into patterns,
Stains.

Dandelions and grass
Protruding,
Against the odds,
Against the wall.

The odour of decay.
The scent of poverty.
The whiff of neglect.
The rank overpowering curse of apathy.

Diesel fumes in the air.

A sodden poetry book
Discarded amongst the trash;
The dirt and litter.
Words
That will never be read –
Pointless –
Essence of real life
Amongst the decay.

A wizened bird
Cocks its head,
Surveys the scene,
In search of meaning,
Of a meal,
Among the beer cans,
Butts,
Discarded condoms
And underwear,
With no need
For Bukowski,
Or his acerbic commentary
On life,
Unless it attracts insects.

Opher 27.12.2017

Bukowski Quotes

Posted on by Opher
We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
Oh well – some things work and some things don’t.
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
Boring lives. I’m crazy all the time.
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.
I’ve known a few.
An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
Interesting perspective – makes you think.
You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
And who needs politics?
Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I’ll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
I’m alright then.
Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
On the other hand it might not.
If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.
How true that is. When things go wrong the true friends are right there.
If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.
Which is a lot more than a lot of people.
Of course it’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.
Humans stink.