A collection of my poetry and diatribes over the past year. Some are humorous, some are vitriolic and some are about love, wonder and awe. All the things that go into the mix of life.
Politics, religion and social comment proliferate. We’ve got Trump in the States and the Tories over here. I voice my thoughts and feelings through verse!
Thank you for taking a look! Thank you for the likes, ratings and reviews. All greatly appreciated.
This is today’s effort. I’m introducing another character. Where’s this going?
3.
Cassie had her life sorted. She scavenged. She had everything she needed.
Most folks would find her life strange. Living without a tridee set, comulator, communicator or stim was unimaginable. What would you do all day? Without a servo how would you eat? How could anyone possibly survive?
For Cass it spelt freedom. Unchipped she was untraceable, unaccounted for and free. She had no account to trace, no credits or a dom. Cass lived off the radar. She left no footprints for anyone to follow.
Not being chipped she was free to roam. She could ride the pedways, droptubes and even jumptubes without charge. To the recognition systems she remained undetectable. For her the air was free. The whole system was in her grasp and she’d certainly grasped that opportunity. She’d travelled. She’s journeyed to the very edges, out to the farthest reaches of the rim. She’d seen the most incredible sights and witnessed the most amazing events, as much as any of the hyperspace sailing elite. While the scudcars and hyperspace clippers would not respond to the orders of an unchipped entity there were always ways to simply stowaway. Just a question of being brazen enough. There were no authorities to question her. All systems were fully automated. Unchipped people did not exist.
Besides, Cassie knew no different. Her mother had given birth to her in the ruins of the ancient cities of Terra. She’d been brought up in a small band of Scavvies, carving a living outside of the system, unchipped and feral. They had quite a community among the ruins, tapping into the System for their modest needs. A resourceful group. They made their own entertainment down on level zero. They had their own little family units. Some lived solitary lives. They spread out through the ruins and kept well away from the ‘zombies’ who came to gawk and especially anyone who looked like they might be military or have authority. The ‘Zombs’ or ‘Goons’ always spelt trouble. There were gruesome tales of round-ups and enforced chippings, of groups being forcibly reconditioned and brought back into the system, though nobody seemed to know of anyone it had actually happened to. But why take chances?
Of an evening, when even the artificial ceiling of the stratum above them dimmed, the disparate groups would often coalesce to gather around a fire, to tell exaggerated tales of their exploits, carefully embroidered and full of bravado, danger and daring. They played musical instruments they had made, performed little plays they had concocted, usually at the expense of the goons, or recited poems. They drank beverages they had fermented and danced, danced wildly, cavorting in their elaborate homemade costumes, flowing through the air, piercing the walls with their shouts and laughter. Cassie’s heart would jump in her chest and her feet would fly as if gravity had been temporarily suspended as she allowed herself to join in, to meld with the instruments and lose herself in the notes. Cassie loved these gatherings. They were family. But even so Cassie kept herself apart. After her mother had disappeared she found it hard to trust anything or anybody completely.
The ancient abandoned city was her playground. She’d made her home in a spacious room, an apartment. The family had helped set her up, connecting a lead to the power system so she had light in the periods of darkness, setting up the sanitation and water, running a feed from the food supply. She might not have a fancy servo but she had all her basic needs. Everything else was a bonus. She’d decorated the place with assorted junk, artefacts that she found attractive. This was home; the place she always returned to.
She’d been a young girl of seven when she’d first discovered the reality above her, the hundreds of levels with their pedways and scud cars, the teeming masses, the surface and the sun. The sun. That had been a mind blower.
Tarquin the Grey had taken her by the hand and led the bewildered young girl on her very first droptube ascent, her very first pedway ride, her very first glimpse of ranks of docile people in coloured purpsuits milling like armies of boojies, streaming along the fast-flowing ribbons in the sky. The air full of scuds, the whole stratum full of more people than she could ever have imagined. Then that sun and the open space; a space with no end.
Not terrified. Not afraid. Just excited beyond belief. Her horizons had suddenly exploded beyond all possibility!
Let me first lay out the framework:
We are a bag of complex chemicals infused with electricity that are capable of thinking.
Our consciousness is created by a neural network much more complex that the most sophisticated computers.
We have a sense of identity that is probably a false construct.
We find it hard to imagine that we could possibly cease to exist or that our lives and the existence of this ginormous infinite universe might be nothing more than chance.
To solve this we invent elaborate eternal afterlives, gods and religions.
We came from nonexistence and will return to nonexistence.
Our conscious formed gradually from an accumulation of cells until there were sufficient to form an intricate network coursing with ionic waves of polarisation, intricate chemistry and patterns. That made us aware.
We are very complex and sophisticated having evolved from simpler bags of chemicals for billions of years.
We live on a small insignificant planet orbiting around a small star out on the spiral arm of a small, normal galaxy.
We crave immortality.
We achieve that through reproduction, through the tangible remnants of our existence (artefacts, machines, structures, words, images, art, music, buildings etc.).
But one day very soon we will cease to live. The electricity will no longer pulse, the waves of polarisation cease and the complex chemistry will grind to a halt. We will cease to be. The identity we had may live on in memories of others or the things we left behind but that is it.
All our history is on this one small precarious planet.
We exist courtesy of a massive ecological network of plants and animals that produce our atmosphere, shield us from cosmic rays, provide our food and inspire us. This ecological web is resilient but also fragile.
If we manage to survive a few billion years more the sun will enlarge into a red dwarf engulfing the whole planet and vaporising every last fossil and artefact so that there will be no evidence of our existence or any other form of life.
If, by then, we have managed to escape our doomed solar system and set up around another star or in the depths of space we may be safe for many billions of years to come.
Eventually, due to entropy, the universe will run down, the stars will go out one by one until the entire cosmos is dark, the heat will drain and atoms will fall apart. All that will be left is a vast puff of hydrogen.
There will be nothing to show we, or anything else, ever existed.
Now we arrive at the purpose of life.
In one sense there is no purpose whatsoever.
In another our very mortality and short lives, coupled with the immense wonder and beauty all around us, provide us with a number of highly motivating purposes.
Instead of becoming depressed at the thought of our demise we should be spurred into action to make the most of every single second of this incredible experience. Ever been on a zip-line? Thrills don’t last forever but they do provide us with excitement!
Our purpose must be something we decide for ourselves. It may be creative, fun, exploratory, educational or simply thrilling. We might find it in competitive sport, in investigating history, in designing the future, helping others, travelling and discovering, filling ourselves with awe and wonder at nature and the universe or a wealth of creative project. Anything that is rewarding and fulfilling.
We have one life measured in seconds. We can fill it with joy, pleasure and wonder or we can waste it.
Futility is in the mind of the terrified.
The purpose of life is to use every second wisely and create a fulfilling lifetime for our bag of chemicals.
May your electricity zing!
While I was driving around the country I had plenty of time to think. What we are doing to the planet, the loss of so many species, the ravaging of our rainforests, the overpopulation – it all drives me mad.
The Big Green Ball
Big green ball
To kick around
It’s just a game
Too soon and gone
The wear and tear
Such a shame
Opher 25.6.2018
When I first heard this song I was eighteen and it hit me like a steam train. I was ripe for it. I was leaving home, leaving school and off to college in London for three years of freedom.
These are a few of the bits that hit home.
Nicky my child he stands there with the wind in his hair
Wondering whether the water the wind of the where
I fear that someday he might ask me if mine is the blame
And I’ve got no reply save to tell him it’s all just a game.
Well Nicky is the wondrous Nick Harper who is a musical genius in his own right. The whole charade of this greedy, violent, selfish human culture is the game we are born into. It is the rat race that stops us from being alive.
The fear of mankind’s untogetherness pounds in my heart
The deceit of my friends the betrayals of which I am part
And O how the sea she roars with laughter
And howls with the dancing wind
To see my two feet standing here questioning
It goes on all around us as we destroy the planet and each other in this endless game of division and vitriol. But when we are long gone the sea and the sky will still be there and it will be mocking our vanity and arrogance.
And I’m just a social experiment tailored to size
I’ve tried out the national machine and the welfare surprise
I’m the rich man the poor man the peace man the war man the beast
The festive consumer who ends up consumed in the feast
That is what I felt like at 18 and still do at 73 – a social experiment tailored to size.
It doesn’t matter who we are – we’re all caught up in this mad machine that is feasting on the planet and destroying it in the process. The greedy and selfish on their crazy spree of growth, possession and power will end up killing us all. We’re fed lies and propaganda. Everything is spin.
And my five-eyed promoter is clutching two birds in the bush
He’s a thief he’s as bad as the joker they’re both in the rush
He’s telling me Ghandi was handy and Jesus sold his ring
(Dunno who to, God maybe)
“And everyone knows dat dis dough’s gonna make me de king”
And the madmen, like Joe Lustig, Roy’s promoter, really believe that money is all that matters – with money you can do what you like, live like a king and rule the world. They believe that all the idealists and religious leaders are being used in the power game, exploited and trotted out when needed and that everyone sells out. Money is power. Money is all that matters.
Except that I, and Roy, knew that game was empty and hollow. There was much more to life than money and there were much better ways of living than a rat race to destroy the planet.
It was all heady stuff for an eighteen-year-old to take in and digest.
Roy Harper was saying things that lit me up. These were no vacuous pop songs or soppy love songs. These were barbed poems with social bite.
I am quite a fun-loving individual. I’m not depressive or gloomy. I like a laugh and I like doing things – especially travelling, writing, photographing and listening to music.
But I do get exceedingly angry a lot of the time. I can’t turn off from a lot of the insane things that human beings are doing.
Here are ten things that are buggin’ me today:-
I know. That is not ten. I threw in one for good measure!
I could go on. But those are the eleven that make my blood boil. I want to live in a world that respects nature and animals, controls its population and industry, is not obsessed with profit and wealth, practices equality, respect and empathy, and doesn’t indoctrinate our children. I want to do away with nations, religion and corporations. I want a population half its present size. I want freedom and individuality. I want creativity, fun and relationship. I want leaders who are not lying psychopaths, sociopaths and in it for the power and money.
I know – it’s become a tirade! But if we don’t shout it will all be destroyed by those who do not care!