Poetry – Looking Forward

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Looking Forward

I’m looking forward

With a good heart

And a wish,

To a day

When there is

A healthy dream.

I’m hoping

And breathing my wishes

Into the wind

With the desire

That they might

Bear fruit.

I’m in love

With the future,

With its ripe world

Of possibility,

In which all things

Are imaginable.

Hopes, dreams, desires, love

And wishes

Are all

I have to offer.

I crave

They are enough.

Opher – 13.5.2016

Looking forward

If we do not keep the hope alive then life is unbearable. We have to dream.

Somewhere in the future there has to be a life that is better than the one we live, a world that is fairer and less violent.

It is true.

If we measure ourselves against the past we see that we are not as cruel as we were. The bear-pits, and cock fights are gone. The brigands no longer pillage and rape. We no longer torture people to death or burn them at the stake. We have become more civilised.

The zeitgeist we build will be better. It is something to work for.

Before we destroy nature completely we may yet come to our senses.

Poetry – What Would You die for?

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What Would You die for?

What would you die for?

What is worth your Life?

It’s your testimony.

Is it love or is it greed?

Is it the truth?

Or just baloney?

Is there a cause that is worthy?

That does not rust in the wind and rain?

Is there a praiseworthy belief

That charismatic leaders won’t flush down the drain?

Opher 22.3.2021

The deepest and most sincere beliefs are twisted out of shape by men with ulterior motives, who seek to use it to gain power, influence and wealth.

What dream is ever pure?

What philosophy can one base a life on that is not debased and sullied by grubby hands.

How much violence, fear and tyranny have been unleashed in the search for a better world?

How much blood is spilt by the well-meaning?

Whatever it is you believe, no matter how pure and beautiful, there is always someone who will twist it and use it against you to create something sullied, sordid and grotesque for their own ends.

Poetry – I sense love

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I sense love

Let me look at you

And feast my eyes.

Let your voice

Warm my heart,

Smell your scent

On every breeze,

Feel you

In my dreams,

And taste

The love between us.

Opher 26.4.2016

I sense love

It may only be endorphins playing havoc with the brain but love overpowers all the senses, heightens and elevates everything.

Never is the world so full of colour, the flowers so full of scent, the bed so soft or the mood so raised.

Love does this.

If we could only live each day in love there would be no war or hate. It melts everything negative into its warmth.

It fills the dreams with sweetness. It encompasses the whole world and wraps it in a hug.

Love is the antidote.

May it last forever.

Poetry – From the heart and back

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From the heart and back

I wrote a poem from the heart.

It was only words –

Letters arranged in symbols.

But I tried to capture

The dreams

Within my heart

And cage them in black ink.

Your eyes scan those symbols

While your brain

Unshackles the concepts

They contain.

Each momentarily freed

To connect,

To rebuild,

Those same dreams

I saw within my head.

I trust the dreams

Built within you head

Were full of love

The same as mine;

A mirror image –

You love I.

Opher 27.4.2015

From the heart and back

There is a world with, a universe in which we live. The outside world is unreal – merely constructed from electrical impulses sent in from nerves. We do not see a real world but merely the one created by our brains – partial at very best.

We have no way of knowing if the universe really exists at all.

For if I severed all your senses and fed in those electrical pulses your brain would live within that artificial universe.

So the me I am, is my greatest creation. It is all I have but even its most cherished memories are constantly reinvented.

What is real?

So when we love and communicate, using whatever symbols, we must surely always fail. The symbols of language are approximations of our thoughts and feelings, limited and partial. To be interpreted by another universe whose rules are different. They can only ever brush the surface -–surely?

Yet not.

‘I love you’ stirs the heart of both the donor and recipient the same.

Love is the greatest communicator of them all.

Poetry – I have been here!

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I have been here!

I am here!

What more can I say?

I exist!

I have breathed the air,

Watched the sky in wondrous thrall

As it mutated

Through all its shades

Of extroversion,

Loved

And felt the ecstasy!

My hands have touched

The holy bark,

The soft flesh

And the cold majestic granite

With equal wonder.

My ears have tuned

To the buzz and song

Of nature

And I have sniffed the wind

Of fertility.

My mind has soared and thrilled

To all the wonders

Of life;

The awe of a planet,

The mysteries of

Atoms and galaxies.

I am here!

I have lived!

And I have cherished every moment

With you.

Opher 22.4.2016

I have been here!

So short a visit. Already the terminal is in sight. But what a journey through landscape that is breath-taking. What passengers to share such a journey. Such variety. Such talent.

So fortunate to have the senses to take it in.

And how I’ve taken it in. It is deep within me. I have soaked it up like a sponge.

I want to experience every last taste, every colour, sound and touch. None of it is wasted.

Above all I want to share all these splendours with you. Every moment filled with love – the sauce that cooks the goose to perfection.

What a statement.

We are merely passing through, stopping to inhale.

By the end I will be sated.

Sated and replete, full.

So short a visit – too short by half.

But we have been.

We have left our mark.

Poetry – Papa Jose – The Only Good Addiction is Love

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Papa Jose – The Only Good Addiction is Love

Love

Is the only

Good addiction.

That is the magic of Mujica.

Fairness

Is the only

Thing worth being shot for.

That is the magic of Mujica.

Equality

Is the only

Struggle worth a bean.

That is the magic of Mujica.

Freedom

Is the only

Dream to hang on to.

That is the magic of Mujica

Hope

Is only one

Of the gifts

That Jose Mujica radiates.

Opher 29.1.2016

Papa Jose – The Only Good Addiction is Love

Jose Majica is an old man, a past President of Uruguay, a fat old contented man, living modestly in a little house no bigger than most of his compatriots. He is a man who spurned the trappings of power and wealth. He is a man that has been shot three times for his beliefs and refused to die. He was a terrorist rebel. He stood for fairness, justice and equality.

He is one of the few who put those values into practice when he achieved power. For Jose it was not rhetoric.

He was a liberaliser and a pragmatist.

He legalised marijuana but insisted that it was not good. He stated that the only good addiction was love. But it was better for the health of the people if the drug was controlled and the money taken out of the hands of the underworld.

He chuckles a lot. He is old and fat but still full of fire. I wish he ruled the world.

Poetry – It Must Be Love

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It Must Be Love

Flooding chemistry,

Electricity flowing,

Hormones raging,

Emotions growing.

Hand in glove –

It must be love.

Centres firing,

Skin perspiring,

Full with energy,

Never tiring.

Hand in glove –

It must be love.

Forever laughing,

Often bathing,

Eyes connecting,

Soon to be expecting

Hand in glove –

It must be love.

Opher 13.12.2015

It Must Be Love

Love. What could be better?

Nothing makes you glow like love, puts colour in the world, and makes everything positive.

All the worries go. The whole universe becomes focussed on one person; someone you would willingly sacrifice yourself for.

It may all be chemistry in the brain, a mundane firing of neurones, a stimulation of nerve centres along with a concoction of hormones, but it is real. There is no excitement like it to bring you out in wide-eyed blushing, sweats and heart thumping ecstasy.

Love makes you feel good.

You fit together perfectly. No one else would ever do.

You want to be perfect for them.

To be with them makes everything perfect.

For love is pair-bonding. It is the prelude to family; the vehicle for selecting genes to merge with yours in progeny.

Love is biology.

Love is magic. Love is all you need.

Poetry – Love again and again

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Love again and again

It has no weight.

It has no size.

It’s antigravity

Built of sighs.

You carry it around

And it buoys you up

Making each sip

A whole full cup.

You can never have enough

But need never be afraid:

The more you give away,

The more you find you’ve made.

There’s no end to the people

You can give love to.

When you give it to them

They’ll give some to you.

It’s the kryptonite to hatred,

The antidote to pain.

Luckily we can fall in love

Again and again,

And again,

And again,

Again,

Again,

Gain,

Gain,

Gain……………

Opher 12.12.2015

Love again and again

It’s true. There’s no end to love. It’s infinite. But beware – it can blow you up.

Love is like hydrogen. It makes you float and it explodes in your brain.

It’s an anaesthetic and an intoxicant.

It banishes the dark.

It makes you laugh and it makes you cry

But it gets you high.

Love. Love. Love.

All the people and animals, trees and things I’ve loved and still do.

There’s no end. I’m never full.

There’s no loss with love – it’s all gain. We can love an infinite number of times then do it all again.

Poetry – You Breathe My Breath

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You Breathe My Breath

When you live with someone for nearly fifty years it is as though you are one. Everything about you has been affected, adjusted and adapted as you learn to rub along. There is compromise but there is also symbiosis.

You have, not only a shared past, but share visions for the future.

Everything we do has been refined as we learn from each other. Both of us would be the less if the other were not there.

We have someone to share stories, bounce ideas off, to lean on and gain perspective, to share wisdom and see more objectively.

Two heads are always better than one. We see things from different angles. We have different strengths, different weaknesses.

Together we are stronger, more confident and better.

You cannot reach so high when you haven’t got a steady shoulder to lean on.

I am a better person.

You Breathe My Breath

You breathe my breath.

You read my mind.

You share my dreams

And all we find.

You wonder with me

And are safe and sound.

In the flood of life

We’re on higher ground.

You’re my safety line

Whenever I fall

That voice of sense

For me to recall.

You’re my compass

And my steering wheel

My fulcrum point

That makes life real.

All I am

Is because of you

All I am

Is because of you

All I am

All I am

Opher 5.12.2015

Poetry – Long Live Love!

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Long Live Love!

Well – being cynical, love is just a set of endorphins. Evolution has rewarded us with a euphoric brain chemistry for seeking out someone to pair our genes with. It is nature’s way of making us feel good. It is all in the name of procreating genes.

But then there are those that get rapturous and full of endorphins at the thought of God or Allah, to the point where they are perfectly willing to torture, kill and terrorise in his name.

As I am an antitheist who believes that religion is the cause of many of the world’s power struggles and creates too many floods of negative brain chemistry I will veer towards Love.

One life – no gods – no heavens – just a beautiful universe, endless wonder, creativity and love. It may only be brief, only chemistry, and ultimately without purpose, but I adore the endorphins! Long live love!

Long Live Love!

An endorphin rush flooding the brain,

With electrical excitement,

Transforming us to dopey eyes and tenderness.

Just nature’s way of rewarding us

For pairing up our genes,

To facilitate DNA’s togetherness.

Just chemistry

Endlessly.

That same mad chemistry

That runs through mobs

Through the religious fanatic,

A neuronal surge

Of euphoria

Making intolerance automatic.

Yet for us who have no god

Who peer with ecstasy at the majesty

Of all that circles within and above;

No matter how brief,

How futile,

How insignificant,

I’ll settle for love.

Opher 1.10.2015