All Together
All together
We are not alone.
A tiny atom
In a cosmic dance.
Together
We are stronger
Together
We learn
Together
We are greater
Than the sum of our parts.
Together we love.
Apart we hate.
More together.
Less apart.
What seeds we sow.
Opher 19.9.2024
I’m just looking at the politics and thinking about the messages.
I’m looking at religion and extrapolating the hatred.
I’m imagining what the world could be like without the tribalism, racism, misogyny and countries.
I’m thinking about how incredibly stupid humans really are.
Stand back and look at the world we’ve created.
Stand back and think what it could have been like if all the money had been spent wisely, if there wasn’t all this division and hatred.
Imagine you are an alien viewing us from afar.
Plenty Religion (Bereft of Spirituality)
Steeped in the dogma
Of the holy book.
Awash with the ritual
The costume and the look.
Lost in the tribalism
Of the righteous clan.
Safe in the brotherhood;
A very important man.
Accepting of the word,
Not questioning the creed.
Straight from the mouth of god
Just as he decreed.
Opher 16.9.2024
Somehow the wonders and mysteries of life just pass him by. He’s bought into the cult. It makes him feel accepted, gives him worth. He’s now a chosen one.
He’s kissing the dirt and missing the beauty of the light bouncing off the flowers.
He’s opposed to the ‘others’ who believe in false gods and not recognising the brotherhood that links us all.
He’s reciting the prayers but not seeing the butterfly.
Pat-a- Cake Pat-a-cake
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Dancing down the street oblivious to the flak
Scorning gas mask and tin hat
High on life
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Reading for hours with me on her lap
Nursery rhymes on tap
Mother and wife
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Cycling to market with me on the back
Ice-cream and sweets never any lack
Giver of life
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Rummaging round all the jumble sales
Finding bargains never fails
Planning the afterlife
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake
Opher 7.10.23
Thinking back to my mum a series of memories came flooding through. I can remember sitting on her lap as a little toddler and her playing Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake baker’s man.
Fond fond memories
As a teenager in the war she danced back down the street, going home from the dances, no tin hat, as the bombers flew overhead and Big Bertha, the antiaircraft gun on the railway fired up at them. In the morning the road she’s danced along was covered in shards of metal from the exploding shells.
She’d play with me all day with nursery rhymes and actions. She’d take me to the market six miles away, in the seat on the back of her bike, so I could see the sheep, pigs and cattle. She’d buy me an ice-cream and a bag of sweets.
Her hobby was jumble sales. She collected clothes and useful things to give to poverty-stricken families.
Her other interest was the spiritualist church.
She was my mother.
One of the greatest songs ever written. Life, love, the futility of society, religion, politics and purpose against the backdrop of nature and eternity.
Always blows my mind.
Give It all You’ve Got.
All the laughs,
All the love,
The agony
And loss.
Will be forgotten,
Count for nothing,
With nobody
Counting the cost.
In the darkness of forever
It won’t matter
That we went for it
Hell for leather.
All we have is
A brief moment in time
In which
We love and shine.
Though it won’t matter a jot.
We’ll still give it all we’ve got!
Opher – 25.6.2022
I often feel that life is a gesture, nothing more.
It is testimony to man’s essential nature that, despite knowing that it is all meaningless and destined to end, we still strive to create.
Pointlessness does not matter.
In the moment we attempt to understand, to express and to raise our puny flags as if staking out eternity.
In this moment there is no death, no aging; no such thing as futility. In this moment all things are possible.
In this moment we can experience everything, fill ourselves with bliss, understanding and love; we can live. Only in this moment.
That is what makes life worthwhile.
