Poetry – The Best Minds of My Generation

The Best Minds of my Generation

I watched the best minds of my generation struggling to discover the truth,

Striving to establish equality,

Learning to respect the universe in which we find ourselves

And dreaming of discovering a better, more meaningful, way to live.

I watched the best minds of my generation applying their whole being

Into filling their lives with wonder,

Celebrating the beauty of existence

And expressing their lust for sensation.

I saw them laugh, rant and argue,

Rabid with passion,

With bulging eyes and wild gesticulations,

Desperate to communicate the ideas in their heads

Before they dissipated into the ether,

Until their tongues were too exhausted to sing,

Their limbs too exhausted to dance,

Their organs too exhausted to love,

And their minds too numb to think.

So that they finally subsided

Into contemplative ecstasy

And slept wherever they found themselves.

Opher 20.8.2019

I was fortunate to find myself among a group of artistic people who were eager to expand their horizons and were never content to lead a mundane life. They were explorers of inner space, travellers and creators.  They were as eager as me to delve into the possibilities and mysteries that surrounded them.

They were not prepared to accept the ordinary and always strived to unearth the extraordinary.

I was very fortunate.

Poetry – Nothing Makes Sense

Nothing Makes Sense

A trillion stars glistening like white salt crystals on black velvet;

The Milky Way a band of circling smoke;

A mind to witness the majestic impossibility;

A mind to ponder all possibility;

A sea of questions to founder in;

Answers like driftwood to cling to;

Facts that are a mirage in a desert of emptiness;

Delight in the wonder and the awe.

Sitting on a warm rock with feet dangling in space,

Staring out to sea as the very last hues of the day’s sun fade on the horizon,

What does it matter?

Suspended here between the breath-taking imponderables of macrocosm and microcosm,

Both of whose mysteries lie beyond our comprehension,

Incompatible in their weirdness,

We bask in the glory of our reality

And breathe its beauty.

Yet still we dare to fathom the reality of quarks, quasars and black holes –

As if any of it mattered.

We dare to stretch back through time to the beginning –

Enshrouded in mystery, like Merlin in his mist, we seek to understand.

With senses limited, experience restricted and minds constrained,

Nothing marries, nothing cleaves and nothing makes sense.

All that’s left is to enjoy the moment of being

And cherish our existence

And cling to the warmth of the rock for as long as we are able.

Opher – 9.8.2017

Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the wonder and majesty of nature, the incredible phenomenon of consciousness and the infinity of the universe.

How did it all arise?

How did we come to be here?

How does this universe work?

The more we come to understand of neuronal nets and brain images, of quantum physics and the birth of galaxies, the more amazing it becomes.

It is fascinating to delve, enquire and discover but ultimately it doesn’t matter. All that really matters is that we are here and that on a warm night with the sky of stars as a backdrop, a companion to share it with and a glass of wine, life is pretty good.

The books I have read recently

I started keeping a record of the books I have been reading. I like a range. Some I read for light entertainment and some for deeper enjoyment and insight.

Reading is one of the greatest delights for. The whole of humankinds imagination and knowledge, insight and drama is available to experience.

A person who reads lives a thousand lives.

So true.

The only thing that surpasses the enjoyment of reading is writing.

245. Consider PhlebasIain M Banks
246. The Player of GamesIain M Banks
247. BecomingMichelle Obama
248. CockroachIan McEwan
249. Ham and RyeBukowski
250. Woody Guthrie’s Modern World BluesWill Kaufman
251. First Men Last MenOlaf Stapledon
252. Brief answers to the Big questionsStephen Hawking
253. If it BleedsStephen King
254. HumankindRutger Bregman
255.the boyNikki Mountain
256. Fairport Convention on track – every album every songKevan Furbank
257. Machines like meIan McEwan
258. Jackson C Frank – the clear hard light of GeniusJim Abbott
259. A life on our planetDavid Attenborough
260. The InstituteStephen King
261. 21 Lessons for the 21st CenturyYuval Noah Harari
262.The Carpet PeopleTerry Pratchett
263.The BackpackerJohn Harris
264. Sleeping BeautiesStephen and Owen king
265. The Dying AnimalPhilip Roth
266. My Childhood as I remember itTess Tackett
267. The TestamentsMargaret Atwood
268. the unlikely adventures of the shergill sistersBalli Kaur Jaswal