Back to reality!!
I’d add in a few hundred more divisive, greedy, villains – Farage, Xi, Oban, Ali Karmenie, Netanahyu, Taylor Greene, all the evangelicals, Banion, Akhundzada and every billionaire on the planet.
The Flaw
The Flaw
There is a flaw
At the core
Of the psychotic ape
Great pain
In the brain
Of the fucked up primate.
Pleasure in agony;
Joy in destruction;
Pleasure in art;
Joy in construction.
The schizophrenic life;
Jekyll and Hyde strife;
Up and down, round and round;
Until we’re in the ground.
There is a break,
Genetic mistake,
Genome of the ape.
Mutated code,
Will explode
Every time we mate.
As we rampage
In the cage
Of this planet.
Shit in our nest
As we infest
This lump of granite.
Opher – 28.12.2024
I’ve thought long and hard about it. My conclusion is that we are too intelligent. We are always on the brink. We lurch towards insanity. Our supersized brains are at full capacity. We cannot handle the stress, constantly teetering on the edge. We topple into paranoia.
Humans are damaged goods.
We cannot cope with our own fragile minds. We’ve exceeded the bounds of sanity.
Our history demonstrates it clearly – violence, war, power, greed, betrayal, fear, hate, religion, division, defence, attack and insanity.
If the world was run on intelligence we wouldn’t have billionaires and starvation, war and crime; we’d have music, love, beauty, compassion and art. Paradise.
It is our damaged minds that create hell.
Roy Harper – Burn The World
Roy’s best single!
The times I saw Roy perform this little ditty. Another epic. Sums up the stupidity of mankind for me. We are burning the world.
Burn The World – 1990
Awareness Records 1990
Roy Harper: producer
Roy Harper: acoustic guitar, vocals and song writing.
Dave Gilmour: guitar
Tony Franklin: bass
Kevin McAlea: keyboards
Steve Broughton: percussion
Engineer: Jacqui Harper
Photography: Colin Curwood
Roy wrote ‘Burn The World’ in 1984. When he had re-signed with EMI he presented them with this twenty minute demo. They rejected it on the basis that it was not a good commercial proposition.
However the song is an amazing concept that is even more relevant today, thirty years later, when we are experiencing the impact of global warming (we are burning the world) and beginning to realise the catastrophic effects it will have.
Roy sat on the recording for six years. He hoped that he might work more on its production, as he had successfully done with other epic songs such as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ or ‘Me And My Woman’, but that never came about. Without a music contract to a major label Roy lacked the finances to devote the time to such a project and he knew this was unlikely to happen in the near future. Yet he believed the song was important and began including it in his live sets. He continued developing the musical arrangement and received positive response from audiences. Rather than abandon the piece altogether he decided to put the song out as it was – basically a partially completed demo.
When I first heard about Roy releasing the two twenty minute tracks – the studio version and live version – I immediately said ‘That’s a single, then Roy!’ And so it was!
The live version demonstrates the way Roy was playing the guitar aided by the use of technology through the pedals, showcasing his versatility and amazing ability to produce and sustain a piece of this length, as well as Jacqui’s ability to handle the mixing desk and use the effects to the maximum. At times it sounds like a full band. Once again Roy lives up to the epithet of a one man rock ‘n’ roll band.
The song itself is written in eight distinct sections:
What is the difference between Humans and Animals?
To Make Themselves Look Big
To Make Themselves Look Big
They wear uniforms,
Put on crowns,
Sit on thrones,
Wear ceremonial gowns.
They wear big hats
Put on a wig.
With many servants
To make themselves look big.
They live in mansions,
Rolex on wrists,
Play with yachts,
Hold sceptres in their fists.
Wearing gowns and ermine,
Finest wines to swig,
Dripping gold and diamonds
To make themselves look big.
Yet really
They are the same as us.
Passengers
On a planetary bus.
Opher – 29.1.2021
The kings, queens, presidents, judges, generals and wealthy, all decked up in their finery, in uniforms, with status symbols, $6000 handbags, flash cars, Armani suits, rolex’s and Italian shoes, are all playing a game.
Everything is a symbol.
Tribalism is rife.
The game is played with deadly results.
We are put in our place. They may put on airs and graces but they are really just small organisms crawling on the thin crust of a planet.
We’re a chemical scum – nothing more!!
So many people spend their life wishful thinking. It’s a flaw in our chemistry. We are genetically programmed to look for patterns and reasons. It’s a survival gene. Unfortunately, you can build stone circles, cathedrals, temples and mosques; you can invent thousands of gods, you can devote yourself to prayer – but that doesn’t manufacture an afterlife or any deity who will rescue you from danger. Hard luck!! Time we lived in the present and appreciated the wonders around us. Then we might look after it a lot better!
Poetry – The Will, the Means or the Might
The Will, the Means or the Might
Gigantic cerebral power,
With electricity jumping neurones
In creative ways.
Huge invention and
Problem solving ability –
A progressive maze.
In a dichotomy
Of good and bad
Creating uncertain days.
We’re on the edge
Of disasters of our devise
And could go out in a blaze.
Can we use our giant brains
To solve the problems we create?
Or are they all too big?
Is it all too late?
I’d like to feel that we have the ability
To make it right.
But do we possess the will,
The means or the might?
Opher – 29.4.2019
I am always amazed by our ingenuity and ability to solve problems. When I look back over the last three hundred years what we have achieved is stupendous.
But in the process of developing our world of technology and science we have impacted greatly on the natural world and put our own future in jeopardy.
My frustration is that I am sure we possess the ability to put it right. I just don’t think we have the will.
While it doesn’t directly affect us we will remain complacent. When the impacts finally manifest themselves it will be too late.
Poetry – A Flash in the Pan
A Flash in the Pan
We insanely think that everything will go on for ever as it is despite the lessons of history that tell us nothing ever does.
Our lives continue slowly down their path until a sudden event, a decision, a disease, a death, and they change forever.
Likewise it is with the history of the world.
Despite all the fossil record tells us we think we are here forever. We are not. We will one day be a seam of fossils in the rock strata. The thickness of the debris we leave behind will be determined by our own actions. That is the difference between us and all that has gone before.
We have the ability, through our innate intelligence, to determine our own fate.
The saddest thing is that despite that we seem intent on engineering our own demise. We steadfastly remain inept at addressing the problems that confront us. Instead of coming together as a species we remain apart as countries, companies and individuals vying, with voracity, for wealth and power in the face of the inevitable.
The Anthropocene Apocalypse looms and we seem incapable of breaking out of the selfish stupidity we are locked into.
The mantra is – ‘Expansion, growth and more!’ It should be ‘Together, intelligence and sanity!’
If we don’t change we will be a flash in the pan.
A Flash in the Pan
A flash in geology –
We came.
Held down by gravity.
We saw.
A species still in embryology.
We conquered.
With insane brevity.
Arrogant with no apology.
We knew.
Beset by depravity.
We grew.
Creating theology.
We thought
With undue voracity.
A chimp with ideas.
We flew.
Flawed with cruelty.
Right through.
Choosing a way of tears –
By choice.
Instead of what could be.
A narrow strip of rubble
We left
Hiding a sea of trouble
Created
By our unruly bubble
Bereft
On the shore of possibility.
Busy designing our own exit
With glee.
Blind with selfish greed
We ignored
The means to fix it.
The word
Was lost in the deed.
Opher 10.9.2015
Planet of Humans – Michael Moore
Poetry – Hunting and Dreaming
Hunting and Dreaming
We came from the South
Across the ice,
Hunting and dreaming.
We spread throughout the world
Throwing dice,
Planning, fighting and scheming.
We conquered and bred
As feral mice,
Until the world was teeming.
Now we totter on the brink,
Paying the price,
As the world lies steaming.
Opher – 8.10.2020
Making our way out of Africa we followed the hunting. We were incredibly successful. Our numbers ballooned.
We wiped out the megafauna in no time at all.
Now eight billion of us are felling the forests, poisoning the land and working our way through the rest of life on the planet.
We’ll kill anything for profit or fun.