Margaret Atwood in York! New book Hagseed! One of the world’s greatest writers!

Posted on by Opher

Well I had quite a literary day yesterday and this morning. I went to see Margaret Atwood talk about her new book Hagseed (a reworking of the Tempest – she calls it a reimagining.).

I don’t write this as a review so much as an homage.

I rate Margaret as one of the greatest living writers (along with the likes of Iain McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie and Kasuo Ishiguro) so it was a rare opportunity to see and hear a living legend.

She talked about the new book and the themes that were in it and urged us to watch the Helen Mirren film of the Tempest before reading the book – which I shall do.

She talked briefly about The Handmaid’s Tale and the way fundamentalists only want to ban the things people want to do. In this age of religious madness (hopefully its death-throes) I think it should be compulsory reading – if only to see the misogyny in religion.

She also talked about the death of the oceans, from which between 60% and 80% of all the world’s oxygen is made, and that the rich were probably at this minute constructing their underground homes with oxygen making facilities and looking forward to being rid of us all. (There’s a book in that!).

I shall watch the film and then read the book. It was a pleasure seeing a living legend.

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The graphics before the show were great. The words from Hagseed were used as figures walked through them or they squiggled about. p1140538 p1140540 p1140541 p1140542

Margaret was lucid and delightful.

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My Weird Surreal Sixties book – Chapter 33 – Weird nivanic bliss and purpose?

Posted on by Opher

Another strange lateral development that probably reflected a lot of inner angst, distrust of convention and seeking something more fulfilling.

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33.

Somewhere off, in exactly the same place, there is a land where things are just a little different.

While Messny dreamed and science flourished, somewhere behind it all life was not at all the same and another scene unfurled.

In the land of Nevthinkovit, beyond the green stream, where the sun always shines and everybody is always happy, live the merry people of Havalot.

They are a race of people who always smile. Sadness and unhappiness are not known to them. They do not even have words in their language to describe such negative emotions. If you were to say to a Havalotian that you felt sad, they would not comprehend what you were talking about for their whole life is one of love and laughter. A Havalotian does not know what it is to quarrel and the idea of becoming angry or fighting would seem completely absurd. In Nevthinkovit they are all friends, have never known any different and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Some call it a magical land for darkness has been banished. The sun pours down its nourishing light and feeds everybody. So Havalotians do not have to feed, sleep or drink. All is catered for. The very idea of doing such things would have provoked hilarity. The thought was ridiculous. Why do all those things when the sun directly provides energy? When moisture can be absorbed through the skin? Why waste the energy when you could be enjoying yourself? In Nevthinkovit they do not even have to breathe. Oxygen abounds and is absorbed by the whole body. Carbon dioxide was desirable. They utilised it. Why breathe?

The people of Nevthinkovit look remarkably human apart from a few distinguishing features. They are all extremely thin and sylph-like, which gives them a delicate grace that is, with their constantly laughing faces, most appealing. They do not possess sex organs for there is no sex. They are all absolutely identical and, lastly, they are all bright green.

They are all remarkably healthy. In fact there is no disease on Nevthinkovit. There are not even accidents or deaths. Nobody could even remember being born or anybody else being born for that matter. They have always been there.

There is no such thing as crime on Nevthinkovit. For a start nobody owns anything so there was nothing to steal and there was no need to cheat or swindle. Everybody is always extremely happy and nobody feels any happier than anyone else so there is no jealousy or hate.

Life for people of Havalot was one long round of games, festivities, companionship and creativity. They spend most of their time painting, writing poems, books and stories, singing and playing music, inventing things and being hopelessly in love with each other.

Whenever you approach Havalot you pass great sculptures and works of art and hear the most delicate melodies, soaring harmonies, tinkling notes and laughter. When you get near you find them all dancing madly, joining hands in circles, clapping or playing their hand-made instruments. If they are not doing that then they are frolicking in the sea or playing all kinds of games that they had invented.

Of course not all of them were madly at it all the time. There was plenty of time to sit quietly and watch the flowers bobbing in the breeze, insects scuttling, trees waving, animals grazing or clouds forming abstract shapes of wonder. There was always something to admire or be moved by. Nobody had a care in the world and time was inconsequential.

Except for Messny. Messny was growing increasingly tired of constant joy.

Messny stood apart with a frown on his face and observed all the other grinning faces. He listened to the music and did not find it satisfying. He did not feel like joining in the games, swimming or creating anything. All the paintings, sculptures and writing seemed boring to him. He could not understand why and he could not explain it. He did not want to feel like it; he did not want to be different. He wanted to fit in and enjoy things like everybody else.

Messny stood aside and watched.

Nobody else watched. They either participated or spectated. They didn’t watch.

Messny thought that it was all remarkably tedious.

Over a period of time Messny became isolated from the others. He found new, strange feelings and emotions arising in his body as if alien chemicals were creeping through his veins. He had never felt different before. Nothing had ever changed before. But now Messny felt that he was changing. Sometimes the feelings were so strong they overwhelmed him. He had emotions that he had no name for. It was making him sullen and miserable, troubled and confused; but mainly he felt sad.

At first he had not felt that way all the time; most of the time he felt as happy as the others. But the periods of sadness had grown until they had become one all-consuming mood of desolation. His head was full of inexplicable thoughts and he’d descending into depression. Not that anybody knew that’s what it was. Depression had not been invented.

More and more Messny stood alone, outside the circle, and watched. He sat and attempted to delve into his mind to find the source of his unhappiness. He dearly wanted to join in and become part of their fun again but something inside him made him hold back. He knew that he could never be happy again until he had resolved it.

Nothing worked. There was a constant cloud in his sky.

Unlike everyone else, whose day was one long frolic, Messny’s day was broken up by the sequence of his moods. His former blissful state was a fading memory.

Messny decided to make himself detached and objective. He determined to study himself and the others in order to understand what was going on. He watched the others to analyse what it was that they were doing that left them so fulfilled and then applied it to himself. Why wasn’t he finding fulfilling? Why was he different? How did he fit into the picture?

All Messny had in his head were a series of unanswered questions that nobody else seemed bothered with at all.

They were mainly of the ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ variety, but there was a smattering of ‘What is the purpose?’

This life, to Messny, had begun to look hollow and pointless.

What was it all about?

What could ever be achieved?

Messny found it all so very frustrating. The questions chased each other around in his head in endless circles. But there wasn’t a single answer in sight.

He watched.

He waited for the curtain to tear and a little chink of light to poke through – any clue that might assuage his raging questions and quieten his mind.

It took a long time for Messny to realise that nothing was going to be gained from all this observation. It was getting him nowhere. The charade was complete. There were no clues to be found.

If he wanted to solve his conundrum he had to do it himself. He had to take action.

There had to be something that he could do. Not that he could think what it might be. He was searching for action.

For Messny he knew that somewhere out there was a purpose and he meant to find it. That meant forcing his mind to travel down new pathways – and that is never easy. Somehow he had to send currents travelling down new pathways through the neurons in his brain. He had to create new patterns.

After much thought he decided that the best place to start is always the beginning. He set off in search of the beginning.

My books are available on Amazon in paperback and digital formats. They are world-wide!

In the UK you might like to browse through on my link below: For overseas visitors please refer to your local Amazon. You’ll find me there.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1475747471&sr=1-2-ent

In the USA:

In the USA – https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=opher+goodwin

Here’s a few selected titles:

Rock Music

  1. The Blues Muse – the story of Rock music through the eyes of the man with no name who was there through it all.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1518621147/ref=la_B00MSHUX6Y_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475748276&sr=1-6

2. In Search of Captain Beefheart – The story of one man’s search for the best music from the fifties through to now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Search-Captain-Beefheart-Opher-Goodwin-ebook/dp/B00TQ1E9ZG/ref=la_B00MSHUX6Y_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475748276&sr=1-5

Science Fiction

1. Ebola in the Garden of Eden – a tale of overpopulation, government intrigue and a disaster that almost wipes out mankind, warmed by the humanity of children.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ebola-Garden-Eden-Opher-Goodwin-ebook/dp/B0116VXVIY/ref=la_B00MSHUX6Y_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475749570&sr=1-19

2. Green – A story set in the future where pollution is destroying the planet and factions of the Green Party have different solutions – a girl is born with no nervous system.

Kindle & Paperback versions:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1500741221/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413306641&sr=1-10&keywords=opher+goodwin

The Environment

1. Anthropocene Apocalypse – a detailed memoir of the destruction taking place all over the globe with views on how to deal with it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anthropocene-Apocalypse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1502427079/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413306641&sr=1-4&keywords=opher+goodwin

Education

  1. A passion for Education – A Headteacher’s story – The inside story of how to teach our children properly.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/passion-Education-story-Headteacher/dp/1502445867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413306641&sr=1-1&keywords=opher+goodwin

There are many more – why not give them a go! You’ll love them!

My surreal Sixties book – Reality Dreams – Chapter 24 continued

Posted on by Opher

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At first Messny’s camp-site had been sparse. When he had first come to this place he had carefully selected a sheltered spot to put up his tent – a tiny one-man bivouac of thin waterproof canvas. He had chosen a small corrie for the start of his new life. The sides were steep and offered protection from the cutting winds. The area around was overgrown with bushes and undergrowth forming a natural oasis in the midst of the barrenness of the moorland.

The green of the corrie was hidden from the purple haze of the moorland by the rocky outcrops. His tent nestled invisibly in the undergrowth, its faded green merging in perfectly.

It took Messny a full season to swap that flimsy tent for a warmer tepee of hide formed from the deer and rabbit that he had learnt to successfully hunt.

That first winter had been hard and his fur lined home a whimsical notion. But he had known it would be and planned for it. He had brought the provisions and clothing to see him through. They had not lasted long, but long enough. His body had thinned and hardened and he had paid for this new toughness with much pain and suffering. Messny had despaired and nearly given up. But his determination won through and he was glad of it. He had resolved to sink or swim and there was no quarter given to his wretched body. Starvation and freezing cold drove him to the full extent of his powers of endurance but he discovered new limits that he had never known he possessed. His strength surpassed his own expectations. Against the odds he not only survived but prospered.

He had equipped himself with skills but had soon discovered that putting them into practice was a different kettle of fish.

He learnt to hunt and snare the plentiful rabbits and deer, to track and trap and read the signs, to tickle or fish for trout in the streams. He learnt to seek out the roots, fruits and berries and to store food for the times of hardship. His eyes grew to pick out shapes, see movements and understand the signs. His hands learnt to wield tools and weapons, to fashion fire and devise ways to meet his needs. He could sit as still as a rock for hours until the time was right to spring into action. He could lunge, rush like the wind or relentlessly track down his prey. He used wood and bone, stone and metal. He made rope, clothing and bedding and created pots for water storage and cooking. His body grew strong and lean so that he could run effortlessly for hours on end and even make his way uphill without breaking his stride. He could leap from rock to rock and fall as lightly as a cat. He had mastered the summer’s heat and the winter’s snow so that while his body screamed his mind remained serene. In his head he kept an encyclopaedia of the area. In it was every tree, rock and bush, the animals and plants, streams and ponds. He knew their habits and the change of the seasons and became part of it. He lived off the land and depended on it. The land was his bounty, his friend and his bitterest enemy. He had learnt to respect it and all that comprised it, each plant and creature, and could feel that it respected him back.

The weak subhuman he had been was now a nasty taste in the past. Now he was free. Messny depended on nothing but his strength and resolve, his skill and resourcefulness. There were gifts all around him. Nature abounded. All you needed was to know how to become part of it.

Messny felt that he was at last a man. He could walk away from his past. He was alive for the first time in his life. He walked with his head high and a gleam in his eye. He now had everything that he had ever wanted and was filled with an inner strength that seemed to flow straight through him and out through that heavenly turbine to the very boundaries of infinity. There was nothing more to achieve other than to be in the moment with the majesty that surrounded him.

Life was full. There were never enough hours in the day to achieve all the tasks that needed doing, yet there was always time to sit and stare. There were whole days set aside to appreciate the changing panorama of beauty that was the natural world. It was a show unrivalled anywhere. Nothing was more important than the clouds as they created artworks in the sky in a gallery that was free to all who cared to look, or the stars that shone with a trillion years of wisdom; nothing was better that the taste of fresh meat cooked over an open fire. Messny was no longer detached – he was part of everything that existed.

Comfort and the promise of a million delectable pleasures had melted quickly into the past. They were no more than an idle thought. Messny had no hankering to return. He did not even wish for a brief glimpse of the past to act as a comparison. He had achieved inner contentment that sated every urge. Not even the aspects he was aware of lacked seemed important to him. He had enough.

Comfort, pleasure, pain or extreme discomfort were all merely states of mind. Pleasures were no longer confined to brief interludes sandwiched between lengthy periods of mediocrity. Happiness existed in being. It was complete and never left him. He had no need for more.

Even so there were things he missed. The main thing that he missed was the company of others. It was hard being a lone Indian in a strange land. A wife and friends would have made it complete. But Messny knew that he had chosen to cut himself off from the rest of humanity and would never share his life with another human being again.

But he was not alone. He could never be alone.

My weird, surreal sixties book – Chapter 22 – Who?

Posted on by Opher

This is raw. I’m typing/rewriting straight from the manuscript I completed in 1976. It took me six years to complete. I started it while I was at college in 1970.

I’m not sure if this collage makes sense to anyone but me. At the time I was looking to fuse ideas, cartoons, humour, poetry, philosophy and stories together in a unique way. It all gelled in my mind. I don’t know if it does in the reader?

22

‘Hey Messny, is that really us in that photograph?’

‘Did we really do all that?’

‘Did we really smoke and drink all night?’

‘Did we fuss and argue over impossible things, too tired to crawl to bed, too excited to go to sleep?’

‘Did we get so high we couldn’t talk anymore, but went on communicating in silence for hours, grinning like madmen, until we had thought enough to talk again, like a dam bursting, it all flooding out again?’

‘Is that a photo of us? Were we always so excited?’

‘Did we always run around – crazy – and live our lives in the dark?’

‘Was the music and poetry so much better then – when it was fresh?’

‘Did I really shout at people that they were dead and blind, without seeing that it didn’t matter that they were already dead?’

‘Were all those rambling discussions real?’

‘Surely it was other people acting out those dreams?’

‘Did we believe all those crazy ideas?’

‘Were we really going to save the world?’

‘Just you and I?

‘Maybe we should have – while we had the chance?’

‘Maybe if we’d have stopped all the talking and started to organise something?

‘Maybe we could have sorted everything out?’

‘Messny, you know, It seems so unfair that I should have changed so, that I should feel so empty and powerless now.’

Reality Dreams – My Sixties Surreal book – Chapter 15 – becoming very surreal and controversial. Shock!!

Posted on by Opher

Jumping ahead a bit. This is where it starts becoming surreal and controversial. No holds barred. I was twenty when I wrote this. My mind was raging. I remember wanting to shock people into thinking. I was being deliberately offensive and provocative.

15.

Tuesday was going OK – nothing out of the ordinary. A famine swept through Africa on the heels of the drought and the Middle East war was still going strong. It was very much business as usual.

From where he was up here, God could feel the tingling pleasures of a billion prayers sweeping over his ethereal body as he lay back on his celestial couch. His name was being exalted in every language on Earth. It was very pleasing and comforting. It was a feeling that never ceased to be monotonous even after thousands of years.

Of course, there were the displeasing niggles of millions of curses that were a source of irritation as his name was abused in every name he had ever been called. But god was easy. You win some you lose some.

God was having a quiet time. He had no great calamities planned, no universal disasters. He’d toyed with an apocalypse – a nuclear war, or maybe a comet strike, but to be honest he couldn’t be bothered. He was feeling lethargic and needed to chill. He just wanted to lay back and let things take their course without any exertion from himself.

God was philosophical about it. He was getting older and needed his rest. He couldn’t do all that gallivanting around like in yesteryear, kicking up disasters, winding up prophets, initiating religions. He’d had great fun. But it all seemed so pointless now. He’d got bored with it and moved on. For the moment he was content to allow things to take their course.

He was jolted awake by what felt like someone jabbing a finger in his side. It caught him unawares.

‘Ouch!’ he muttered irritably. ‘What the hell was that?’

He focussed down onto the planet below to see what it was that had woken him up so rudely and disturbed his drowsy contentment.

Messny was tacking up a sheet of paper on the main university notice board. A small crowd was hanging round, checking out the board.

Messny was feeling proud of his notice. He had thought of it yesterday, typed it up on the computer and taken a lot of trouble with the design – the font, colours and border. It had worked well.

Messny had started at the University with his mind raging like a combine harvester heading downhill without a brake.

He stood back to admire his work. He thought it looked good.

‘We, the undersigned

regard God as a mass murderer who should be punished for his crimes against humanity – whether intentional or through neglect!

He, as an all-knowing and all-powerful being is purposefully causing the agonising deaths of countless human beings through drought, disease, starvation and warfare. Furthermore, countless more deaths can be attributed to him through the less obvious crime of ‘natural causes’. On top of this he causes people to be horribly maimed and suffer agonies.

‘Throughout history billions of innocent people have suffered incalculable pain when at a flick of his finger he could alleviate all suffering.

To allow such atrocities to occur we must conclude that he is a psychotic, sadistic Madgod.

As such we would demand that the authorities should have him removed from power and put in a place where he can no longer practice his wicked ways.

He should be replaced with a kind, thoughtful god, duly elected by the people, and behaving in a democratic, pleasant manner – a God who will put an end to separation by race or creed – a sensible god who will not induce sectarian hatred and war in the name of religion – a god who is good , who will organize things to create no misery.

We demand a god who will allow plenty of conflict but no hatred.

A happy god for a happy life.

Down with death, pain, misery and affliction!

DOWN WITH HATRED!!

DOWN WITH GOD!!!

The crowd of people, of every nationality and religion, stared at Messny’s declaration. They muttered darkly. The numbers began to swell.

Messny was delighted. He had never envisaged so great a response. The crowd was becoming thicker with every passing second. They pressed forward in their attempts to read his notice. Soon the foyer was jammed to bursting point.

Messny could not believe his eyes. This was beyond his wildest dreams. He had expected a minor response from a few people – maybe to outrage a person or two, but nothing on this scale. It was ridiculous.

But it hadn’t stopped there. The numbers were still increasing. They were pushing and crowding in. There was a loud hubbub and anger. Messny began to feel uneasy. This was peculiar. It was only a little notice. It might be a bit controversial but should not be attracting such a huge reaction. He’d never seen anything like it.

The emotions seemed to be boiling up. The crowd were milling round and creating lot of noise. Some had begun shouting. There was a whiff of violence in the air. Messny’s eyes were darting here and there, taking in the distorted faces and fury. Sweat was breaking out on his brow. His heart was racing and he wanted to get out of there. But he couldn’t. He was trapped. The crowd were pressing in so hard all around him that he found he could not move.

The atmosphere was angry and hostile. They were becoming like a football crowd out of control. A raucous baying was rising up all around him. Fists were raised in the ait. It was heading towards hysteria.

As if a switch had been clicked someone ripped the notice off the board and people clutched at it, ripping it to shreds

The frenzy seemed to be growing and rising to a crescendo.

Following an unseen signal they turned as a man and focussed on Messny. All around him the furious gargoyles of faces sent incandescent barbs of venom towards him. Messny cringed but they were all around, lips curled back in vicious snarls, teeth clenched, saliva dribbling, hands reaching with fingers hooked into claws. Terror welled up as Messny clawed to escape, but they were tearing and ripping at him with their talons, no longer human at all, crazed monsters. He screamed as the fingernails tore at his clothes and flesh. He screamed and screamed but they were relentless. They wanted blood. He felt himself go under as a tsunami of primitive savagery flowed over him and the fists, boots and teeth, ripped, thudded and bludgeoned.

In response to another subliminal cue the crowd went quiet and began to withdraw, moving backwards to form a space around the bloody broken body that had been Messny Krapbutt. Towards the rear people began silently dispersing. Within minutes the foyer was empty and all that remained with the pummelled gory corpse scattered with shreds of paper like confetti.

God sat back with a sigh and went back to his drowsy contentment.

Reality Dreams – A surreal Sixties book – The Preface.

Posted on by Opher

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I used Pete’s incredible poem as the preface.

Preface

When I take all the time in the world

Me, you and it are all one –

Time agoes, roundabout whirls

Along distances never run.

 

If I think at the speed of light in my brain

And if my thoughts carry any weight

They’ll have infinite mass

And now and again

I’ll be able to speak with some gravity –

Which won’t be dependent on brevity

‘Cos infinites, infinite infinity.

And what about now? When? Now – then.

 

The monodimension

Mu-meson dilation

Of infinite extension,

Red shift relation,

That memory retention

Is fade out dependention –

One way ticket down entropies gangway.

 

When I take all the time in the world

And think it all into a second –

Has been and will be,

Old man and baby,

In coracle hairy

Of knowledge and mystery;

The facts and the fantasy

Of matter and energy

And Einstein’s light

All might

Be the same

But for name

 

In the rhyme

Of old tyme

……Dancing…….

When I take all the time in the world.

 

Pete Smith 1973

Reality Dreams – A surreal Sixties book I started writing in 1970 – The Introduction

Posted on by Opher

I thought I’d get this typed up. It is very strange. I’m wasting my time, right?

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Introduction

I started to write this book back in 1970. At the time I thought I was creating something quite revolutionary. I was writing a collage of a story incorporating poems, cartoons, spirituality, biology and philosophy.

I eagerly sent it off to publishers who, for some strange reason, did not get the weird counterculture entity I had produced. I think they were looking for something that conformed to a more standard format. I put it down to their lack of ability to understand.

Only with the passing of time, many rewrites, and greater objectivity did I realise that the writing was rubbish and the narrative did not carry the reader.

So why am I bothering to resurrect it now 46 years later?

Well I ask myself that too. But I am attached to it. It was my first foray into writing and I find it fascinating. It is a mass of all the ideas going through the head of a twenty year old veteran of the sixties scene. It’s full of weirdness and naivety. Rewriting it is like communing with the person I used to be forty six years ago. It’s like meeting an old friend. It makes me smile.

I am addressing the writing but I can’t do much about the structure. It’s a sixties thing.

 

Opher 23.9.2016

My first book – Reality Dreams – written in 1970-75.

Posted on by Opher

I’m writing up my first book – more for my own satisfaction than anything else. I’m quite nostalgic about it as it took me many years to write. I started it in 1970. It is a collage incorporating cartoons, poems, sketches and a surreal story. I thought I was being really revolutionary. It is a thing of the sixties. I do not think it has any commercial promise but I felt I would like to put it in print so I can have a real book copy.

Here’s the start. What do you think?

Part 1

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The Flux

The universe does not exist in space and time. It has no size, shape or form. Time is merely a measure of change; it radiates out from a point at various speeds, dependent on the energy it chooses to hitch a ride on. Usually it is fast.

Any individual appears to live in a moment in time and space and may continue to live their life unaffected by the reality of this phenomenon. Yet, perhaps, one day they may realise that the finite life they live is an illusion. The moment this realisation occurs and is believed their life will cease to exist. For who can connect cause and effect in an infinite system where time and space are interchangeable? The reality is that our lives are held by a tenuous thread. We have no static shape and the sequence of days that make up the course of a life may be nothing more than a chance progression, an anarchy of ideas in a vacuum.

For finity and infinity cannot exist inside each other. The illusion of one or the other is nothing more than the product of a healthy art of deception. The flow is a poet. Life is the metered scrawl on a clean sheet that is the void.

Each individual must make the decision to choose whether it is finity or infinity that is reality. Whatever they select they should be warned that it is likely to be incorrect. The pattern of life and memory may alter unexpectedly.

Geologically the life of the Earth is recent; the passage of a lifetime a fleeting flicker. For the void the whole universe with its stability of matter and orderly course of time is but a brief interlude. Anarchy is the path that nature treads in order to create the flux.

Nothing that exists in the flux is ever organised in finite terms. The laws that seem to govern space and time are ephemeral.

As I write and you read we may even be the same being.

 

 

3005 Posts in 2 and a third years! Worthy of some sort of celebration.

Posted on by Opher

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I just noticed that I have passed 3000 posts. I started blogging in May 2014 so that’s not bad going.

My posts have featured –

My books

Beat culture

Anti-establishment views

Photographs

Rock Music

Sci-Fi

Humour

Writing

Nature

Ecology

Psychology

Education

The environment

Poetry

Politics

Religion (antitheism)

Spirituality

Literature

Philosophy

Death

Short Stories

Art

Travel

Blues

Radio Shows

Current affairs

What you won’t find is celebrity culture, food, fashion, popular culture or sport. You won’t find racism, intolerance, misogyny, sexism or elitism. You might find a bit of passion, anger and a few harsh words and expletives.

I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be going. We’ll see how my spirit moves me!

So if you’ve liked my blogs – make my day – go and buy a book. Find out what goes on in my head. It’s there in lurid detail.

 

Poetry – Contagion – a poem about religion, intolerance and control

Posted on by Opher

Contagion

There is a war going on. It is fought through costume, spire and minaret. It seeks to convince that a certain message is the only truth. It is fought with lavish structures, rituals and words from long ago. It seeks to give credence to the implausible.

The beliefs spread like viruses.

The believers are clear. Everything is laid out in words of black and white. There is absolutely no need to think.

The virus puts an end to thought or independence. It converts the acolyte into a cog in the wheels of power. Everything else is wrong.

All you have to do is believe. All is forgiven. Eternity is your reward.

What a virus. What a disease.


 

Contagion

Contagion from minarets and veils

To pollute minds

With detritus

From the Dark ages of fear,

Dispensing ritual

In black and white

For messy lives

Who crave order

In the midst of chaos.

As if not eating pig

Or covering your hair

Would guarantee eternity

And bring pleasure

To a blood-thirsty deity.

But there is magic in words –

Mumbo jumbo –

From the dawn of time

When not believing

Was a crime.

Opher 17.9.2016

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If you wish to buy one of my poetry books you can purchase them here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1474228354&sr=1-2-ent