The Day We Saved The World

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The Day We Saved The World

The day we saved the world

There was cheering in Kabul

Girls in their summer dresses

Free with their noblesses,

Smiles and laughter

In the rubble of Ukraine

Hugs and handshakes in the rain.

Milkshakes and ice cream in Sudan

Not a sign of desperate Dan.

All the Ayatollahs threw off their robes

Shaved their beards and danced.

The Pope sold art from the Vatican

A billion lives enhanced.

Trump destroyed his missiles

Threw a party at the Capitol.

Putin dismantled all his submarines

And that was not all.

The day we saved the world.

The day we saved the world

Musk and Gates fed all the little kids

And moved into a semi

Starmer kissed Thera May

And danced all night with Kemi.

ISIS fighters drank and sang

And everyone was pissed.

Evangelists embraced

Not a soul was missed.

The Ku Klux Klan cuddled babies

A new vaccine against rabies.

No-one ever caught the scabies

The day we saved the world.

There was love-making in the streets

Laughter in the bible belt

Waves of ecstasy were felt.

Sharing all across the planet

No-one had to plan it.

Every creature was revered

Every eye was teared.

All nature no longer alarmed.

As not a hair was harmed.

Every tree was sacred.

Everyone a star.

Nobody tried to make a killing.

Everyone was willing.

Playing tunes on their guitar.

The day we saved the world.

The day we saved the world.

The dawning of a new era.

Nothing could be clearer.

Everybody reborn.

Everybody happy

Nobody left forlorn.

No shit in any nappy.

Plenty food to eat

New friends to meet.

Joy and laughter in the air

All one lovely people

With everything to share.

We disinvented politics.

Unimagined all religion

Worshipped every type of life

From spider to pigeon.

From there on it was perfect

No family subject to neglect.

The day we saved the world.

Opher – 6.1.2024

I stole the title from Ian Dury. I’m reading one of his biographies. He was talking about the rhythm of words and had this as a starting title. I like to think there are shades of Dury in my words. It’s a kind of reasons to be cheerful.

You know, things could have been so much different. If only the gentle and kind ruled the world instead of the violent and greedy.

Just think.

Poetry – Give me wonder – a poem for ISIS and other fanatics.

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Joy not Living Death

Give me wonder

I wrote this for ISIS and all religious fundamentalists.

I do not believe that life and joy can be spelt out in a doctrine. Life is sacred in a different way.

We do not have life and worship death. We have life to cavort in the wonder and majesty of a universe of marvel.

I do not believe in any joyless god who demands such mundane worship that it strangles the spirit. My sacred is in the sunset, the gorge, the mountain and tree – the things that raise the spirit and allow the mind to soar.

My wonder does not create hatred. It is not cruel. Neither does it make me virtuous or superior and reduce others to the level of worthless scum.

I want the ecstasy of now not the empty promise of some paradise.

I do not believe in paradise. Neither do I believe that any terror would open up those gates even if one did exist.

Those holy books of dead words betray life. They give the lie to all that lives and rob the world of majesty.

My holy is in life. My holy is real.

Give me wonder

Give me wonder –

I do not need your routine.

Do not break things down –

Build them up!

The sum is greater than the parts.

So fill me up

With discovery!

Celebrate!

Don’t drown me in hate

Or fill me, moribund,

With dead words

From days gone by.

Give me life;

Let me sing.

Fill my eyes with beauty,

Not tears.

I want to cuddle, not kill.

I want to live now,

Not in some fabled future.

Give me love.

Burn your books

And live.

They speak not of life but death.

They have no joy.

They reek of ritual

And are obscene.

Give me light

And breath

And hope.

I’ll live now!

I’ll live now!

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Opher 14.1.2016

Poetry – Jimi

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Jimi

A sorcerer

Changing a guitar into a bomb,

A machine gun,

A helicopter gunship,

A roaring machine of death

Or a vehicle of love.

Harnessing feedback

Through a tremolo arm,

With an elbow,

The back of a hand,

Teeth and soul.

Creating sounds

That had never been heard;

A tsunami of emotion

And wonder.

A magician

Towering over

The vibe

Of our alternative

Vision.

Opher – 16.8.2019

I was fortunate enough to catch a look at the film of the Woodstock festival recently. It took me back to the ideals of my youth. We were so naive – but brave, so optimistic and full of hope, so earnest and determined.

This is the new world we built.

We fought for freedoms, nature, equality and an end to racism, sexism and elitism with big dollops of love and fun.

It’s a battle that is still going on.

I watched Jimi play, all those years ago, at Woodstock – not long before his death. He brought reality and Vietnam into the fight. War is the result of all that greed and inequality. He conjured up great emotion.

We had the alternative vision and Jimi was our magician.

He worked his magic in our ears and minds and helped open our eyes to what was wrong in society.

Poetry -Killing the Taliban

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Killing the Taliban

I’m busy killing the Taliban

With my dancing and my song.

Causing their destruction

I don’t think it’ll take too long.

They’ve come out of the Dark Ages

With their joyless cult of death.

We’re fighting their misogyny

With all our hearts and breath.

There’s a misery surrounding them

With their brainwashed ideology.

They live for death; we live for life

And the love of being free.

So with our instruments of love

We’ll play our symphony

And waken the joys of life

From their stone-cold misery.

They made the mistake of thinking

Their god hates music and song;

That women are all second class;

How could they have got it all so wrong?

So with the magic of our strings

And the beauty of our voice

We’ll sing a song of love

That’ll make their hearts rejoice.

So I’m killing the Taliban today

I’m dancing as I sing.

They’ll throw their joyless book away

And let freedom ring!

Opher – 15.5.2019

What kind of miserable death cult is it that kills people for singing and dancing?

What kind of doctrine is it that squanders the wonder of their own lives and seeks to put an end to pleasure?

What kind of cult is this that seeks to live in the past? That thinks stoning is an apt punishment and women are inferior?

I think the human spirit is vital and alive. It knows that song and dance are not crimes.

You defeat such a brainwashed cult by showing them a better way.

Instead of following some hollow words from the Dark Ages we can come together to celebrate, women and men, children and the old, – there’s the treasure.

You kill a wicked, warped ideology with something better.

We’ll play a happy song to prove that they are wrong.

Poetry – Spirituality Reigns

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Spirituality Reigns

 

Trees and rocks and rainbows

Within the spiritual arc.

Seas and skies, cosmic glows,

Along with leaves, flowers and bark.

 

The insects, fish and birds

A tapestry of wonder.

Divine sun, moon and stars

To split the mind asunder.

 

The beauty of this life

In all its great mysteries.

The mind and consciousness,

Universe of histories.

 

Five senses to reveal

A majesty in seconds

So time enough to try

As infinity beckons.

 

Opher – 15.12.2019

 

 

We open our eyes into this universe for a brief period in infinity. We close them and we are gone. It ceases to exist.

In the midst of this amazing spiritual adventure, through the might of the cosmos and the spectacle of life, we are fortunate enough to have senses to experience it and a mind to appreciate it.

Infinity is a long time.

Our life is a blink, a brief flicker.

To make the most of those fleeting moments, to understand, to rejoice and to wonder – that is all we can do.

Every second is a mystical joy.

Poetry – How wondrous – for a secular, humanist ritual

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P1030655

Secular Rituals

Human beings have a great need for rituals. We go in for uniforms and pageant. Our rituals tend to be militaristic or religious. Dave Kingsbury (of the great blog – A nomad in cyberspace) thought that it would be a great idea to write some secular rituals that acknowledged the wonder of life; rituals that did not require belief, religion or celebrate violence.

It sent me thinking.

This is what came out. I’m not sure if it’s a poem or a secular psalm. I see it as part of a humanist ritual.

 

How Wondrous

Wondrous it is to open your eyes into this universe of beauty.

Wondrous it is to behold the splendour of the stars, sun, rocks and trees.

Wondrous is the ecstasy of life.

For with our eyes we see,

Our ears we hear,

As all our senses penetrate

The mysteries that surround us.

 

The wonder of moon and sun,

Of sunset over sea,

Of grass rippling in the breeze,

The splash of stars

Across a velvet heaven,

The sigh of love,

The thud of drums,

Vibration of strings,

The tinkle of water over rocks,

The crash of waves,

Skeletons of trees against an orange sky,

Shapes of clouds against an agonising blue;

The oranges, yellow, reds and greens

That flood the eyes with beauty –

The wonder of life.

 

Opher 14.3.2016 (For Dave)

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