Poetry – Away on a cruise – a poem about travelling

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Away on a cruise

I am not a cruising person. I find the idea quite repugnant. There is something pretentious about it – the dressing up for the Captain’s table – the pretending to be part of the elite and experiencing the five course restaurant meals. Then there is the jolly, jolly games to join in with – the deck quoits, quizzes, craft, gameshows and the evening shows and cabaret.

Not my scene at all.

But then I saw the cheap fifty five day tour to South America and looked at the ports of call; an opportunity to visit lands I would probably not ever get to, to see the wild-life and get a flavour. All for a ridiculously cheap price.

Then there was the factor of spending the whole of January and February in the warmth, under the sun, with a pool.

There was plenty of time to read and write.

It was too good an offer to refuse; two months away from the cold and mundane jobs; two months to relax and think.

So here I am – sitting in a cabin typing, writing poems and looking forward to disembarking for a look around Buenos Aires and Montevideo the day after. Rio was great and I’m looking forward to Cape Horn and the Falklands. Whales, dolphins, seals, boobies, frigate birds and flying fish pass by.

I haven’t made any new friends but I’m rubbing along and being prolific in the bargain. I have a deep tan and a good fitness level from walking round deck, cities and parks.

I’m enjoying this cruising lark.


               Away on a cruise

 

They made me an offer I could not refuse

Away on a cruise.

An opportunity to read and write

In sunshine divine.

Enough vitamin D to lift the spirits.

To visit far off lands

In the wake of the great poets.

To breathe the air

To gaze on mountains, seas, trees, creatures and birds

My eyes have never seen.

To savour the difference,

Taste the fruits

And open the mind anew.

Nothing is more exhilarating than change,

It reawakens palates,

Opens the senses to delight

And replenishes the soul.

Refreshed

The words tumble over each other

In a desperate attempt

To etch the impossible

Into empty spaces.

But who can tell of colours?

Sounds? Tastes?

That adequately describe

The nuance of a single moment.

Siting in a café in Rio

With the sun and a beer

Unredeemed by the redeemer

But enjoying the sugar loaf of life.

 

23.1.2016

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Poetry – I am an accident – a ode to the wonder of life

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I am an accident

My never ending fascination with reality continues. I love everything to do with the universe, life and infinity. It is amazing.

I have found no answers. I do not think there are answers in any of the holy books. They seem to me to be men (very few women) trying to find answers to the perennial questions of life and death. I suspect there are no answers. I see verses of poetry, moral instruction and political rhetoric from millennia gone by. Teachings that are meant to illustrate life and answer our questions and fears concerning the after-life. I do not find them convincing. What I do see is the way they are used by politicians and religious leaders to gain power and influence, accumulate wealth, live in luxury and control others. Religion is not about providing answers so much as creating prestige and raising people up. It is a weapon of the establishment to control the masses.

The reality of space, time and life is far stranger than anything written in holy books from semi-civilised times. We are only now piercing the world of quantum mechanics, subatomic particles and the mysteries of the Big Bang. There is an underlying chaos within the order. There is a conundrum.

Humans love mystery. I am human. Rather than create creeds to indoctrinate children with and foster hatred I would prefer to appreciate the wonder of a sunrise, the splendour of a creature or the beauty of a landscape. If there is such a thing as spirituality then I believe it is within those things, plus a little love and friendship – not any book of words.

I believe the universe, and life, is the result of random chaos, chance and a few basic physical laws. Nothing more. We are all accidents worth celebrating. The fact that we are here and able to appreciate it is as near to a miracle as I’m ever likely to get. If that isn’t worthy of celebration what is?

I am an accident

 

I am a single accident

In a universe of accidents.

Each moment is a complete new universe

To experience and explore,

Loose within the fabric of organised chaos.

No one thing is left to chance;

Everything is left to chance.

My mind churns through the possibilities

Seeking answers

All I see from humanity

Are lies, deception and disease.

We taint the purity

With the halitosis of our words.

Even the holiest words

Become profane abuse

To facilitate power

Rancour and hatred.

The mystery of chance is encapsulated

Between the lines.

That is where the truth of eternity lies –

Between the lies

Between the lines

Between the signs………

 

Opher 23.1.2016

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Poetry – Rio – a homage to a city

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Rio

To wander the streets of Rio in the rain as the heavy clouds create dreariness and humidity, is leaden and saps the soul. Sugar loaf and Copacavada are invisible enwrapped in cloud. ‘Christ the Redeemer’ appears for a minute or two and is then enveloped.

But the clouds disperse and the sun bursts through. Immediately the colours spring out and spirits rise. People are out in the streets preparing for carnival. The favelas have colour and are no longer slums. Sugar loaf and Copacavada are picturesque monuments of nature looking down on the thriving beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana.

The crowds are out, beaches pack with football, volleyball and bronzed bodies. There is laughter, swagger and the pervading essence of samba.

A night, when the heat cools, the bars are filled with noise, bustle and beer – It jives.

Rio, like most cities, is a place of contrast. Beauty and garbage sit side by side. There are luxury apartments overlooking the beaches and mountains, and slums thrown up in shanty towns on hillsides of mud. But when the sun comes out and the colours kick in you can feel the energy. It is the carnival city.

Rio

 

In Rio

In summer

Under the clouds

As the redeemer remains shrouded

In thick fog

And even sugar loaf

Is stark and grey.

Above

A flock of frigate birds

Soar in spirals

Seeking the thermals

While sheerwaters skim the waves.

 

Then the sun

And colour

Changes

The beaches to yellow

The hills to green

And brings the favelas to life

 

Rio rocks

To the drumbeat of samba

The hip feel of carnival

The lightness of being

The gaiety of vitality

And beckons with adventure.

 

23.1.2016

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Poetry – Life Goes On

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Life goes on

I was struck by the absence of life as I travelled around South America. Sailing days through seas devoid of life. There were no dolphins, whales or porpoises. There were a handful of seabirds. Days would go by without a single booby or frigate bird.

On land it was the insects that were missing. Apart from the flies at Cape Verde, everywhere else was quiet. I was used to the chirping of cicadas, crickets and grasshoppers, but thye Amazon forest seemed quiet. There was no profusion of life. Without insects there are not the animals that feed on insects, there are not the pollinated plants.

It felt as if I was witnessing the slow death of a planet. The buzzing meadows of my youth had turned silent. Now the rainforests were following suit. The seas were becoming wildernesses.

Everywhere we went there was poverty, people sleeping rough on the streets, in shacks and shanties, desperate for work, food or shelter. Teeming millions reaching out into the wilderness and consuming anything that moves, clearing and creating garbage filled wasteland out of pristine jungle.

Too many people; too few of the rest of life.

It did not need to be projected far into the future.

 

Life Goes On

The sea is all around

Without a single speck of life.

No dolphins frolic in these bow-waves.

The forests are silent

Without the buzz of insect

Rustle of creatures

Or chirp of bird.

All is garbage,

Rubbish and desolate wasteland

Baking in the heat.

Towns overflow with poverty and despair.

Life is sucked dry

By the sheer weight of numbers.

What teemed is now sterile.

What sang is now silent.

What lived is now barren.

What they call life goes on.

 

Opher 23.1.2016

 

 

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Poetry – Ginsberg’s Sandwich of Reality

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Ginsberg’s Sandwich of Reality

I was reading Ginsberg’s book of poems – Reality Sandwich. That is what inspired this poem.

I liked the idea of snacking on reality. Reality is a concept, a place we do not inhabit. Science has revealed much but the reality is so much more. Our senses are limited and our understanding even more so.

We live on a thin skin on a cooling planet. Those plates are drifting around and we crawl about on them. A little way under our feet is a great seething mass of molten magma. Above us we are shielded from the radiation of a constant nuclear explosion. A thin layer of ozone and atmosphere protect us from a lethal dose of hard radiation. Within us a world of quantum mechanics flows unnoticed as subatomic particles stream back in time, exist in two places at once or connect in weird and wonderful forms.

I wonder what the Taliban make of all this? I know the Christian fundamentalists live in their own little world and pretend that it is all as it was two thousand years ago. The Taliban have an austere plan for us all. Theirs is a world devoid of poetry, music, tolerance or love!

Maybe love is the filling of that sandwich? That would taste good!


 

Ginsberg’s Sandwich of reality

 

I’m eating Ginsberg’s reality sandwich

Sitting under a nuclear explosion

Floating on a scum of solidity

Cooling in the void.

Aware, but only partially aware,

Of unfathomable weirdness.

Dining on black holes

Quarks and quantum thoughts.

 

I’m eating the bread first

And hoping someday to fully digest the filling.

Perhaps it will sustain me?

 

I’m licking the Zen of now

Salivating over my dreams

For they are all that I know

To be real.

Flavours tease my palate

As I devour the thoughts and ideas

Of all and sundry

In search of a glimmer.

 

I swallow it all.

I swallow everything I am told.

I swallow eternity.

 

I have the sandwich

But it is a mere snack.

Reality may reside in the main course

Or the coffee

Or the slumber that follows.

I fear this sandwich will not deliver

The absolutes it promised!

Perhaps it merely dulls the appetite!

 

Opher 21.1.2016

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Poetry – Catered for – a poem of despair

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Catered for

I find it scary to think that this global machine that mankind has created is now out of control. It does nor operate for our good. There are a tiny elite of the rich and powerful who, either directly as a consortium (the illuminati), or indirectly are guiding us towards the scene of a mighty downfall. All they want is more. More money, more influence, more power, more possessions. It is a disease and they will never have enough.

This small group own the world. They buy off, bribe and control. They influence the politicians, the media and create their version of ‘the truth’. We are bought and sold. We are directed. We are told how to vote and what to think.

They steal our dreams.

These faceless psychopaths have amassed wealth at the expense of everyone else. War, poverty, pollution, environmental destruction – it is all a by-product of their activity.

All rebellion, revolt and opposition is predicted, absorbed and nullified. The rebels become icons of the establishment and exploited for profit.

The whole world is becoming a theme park.

I can shout until I pass out from lack of oxygen but they will merely deal with me in their myriad ways.

We are the docile majority queuing at the gates of Dachau.

I am harmless!

 

Catered for

I am catered for.

They take me into account.

I am tolerated

Ridiculed

And ignored.

I am allowed,

Taken into consideration

And exploited.

As if my rebellion is part of the scheme.

They have that smug, knowing smile

As if I am senile.

I am part of the equation

Whatever I do

Will be used against me.

There is no escape.

It is all-consuming.

That is why they are so smug.

They welcome my protest;

It lets off steam

Gives the appearance of radical

Thought

Yet is benign

And can be incorporated

Into chic fashion

Like Che,

Like Mao, Marley and Lennon

Wind from the arse of humanity!

Harmless!

Just wind.

 

Opher 21.1.2016

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

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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 – Sparking with eccentricity – a poem about the wondrous jelly in our heads

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AppleMark

Sparking with Eccentricity

I sit and wonder where the thoughts come from, where the words appear. There is a process happening inside my brain but the manner of it is not clear.

Under my skull there is a large pink gelatinous mass that is my brain. It flows with blood and electricity – a jelly of cells with intricate neuronal networks of trillions. It throbs. I like to imagine it glowing even though I know it does not.

Within this jelly my thoughts and dreams are formed. My awareness of myself is constructed and my consciousness created.

When I stop to think about the physical and biochemical processes involved I am astounded. It is magical. To think that chemistry is the basis of my personality.

When I stood in front of others to speak I was so in awe of the process that I was never confident that the right words would ever form. I could imagine myself standing there with an empty head.

As I get older the words often play hide and seek with me. But I eventually track them down.

The wonder of consciousness is one of life’s great mysteries. But it does not make me believe in even more esoteric beliefs. Life is amazing. But I believe we will understand it in time to come. Science adores a mystery.

The incredible spectacle of the universe, life and consciousness are part of the phenomenon that gives life purpose and fills me with ecstasy.

That’s enough.

 

Sparking with Eccentricity

I have this pink blancmange

Full of electricity

That houses the thoughts

That are the essence of me;

Convoluting tubes

Sparking with eccentricity;

Grooves and ridges

Retaining my imaginative

Elasticity.

 

I spark!

I light up!

And I fly!

That gelatinous

Jelly

Throbs

With the warmth

That is I.

 

Opher 1.1.2016

Poetry – Grateful to my Motherboard – A poem about ageing and parents.

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Grateful to My Motherboard

I think it was the constant crashing of my computer that prompted me to write this poem – that and my interest in consciousness as a neuronal network of interconnecting neurones.

As I become aware that my body and brain are not quite as agile as they used to be I began making the analogy to the degrading of my computer programmes. It seems to me that if you leave the PC on it starts to go slower and slower. The upgrades are also designed to slow it up. There is an inbuilt obsolescence. They want you to regularly buy an upgrade!

That is what we have – an inbuilt obsolescence. We have evolved to get old and die so that we do not compete with our offspring for available space, food and water.

I could do with a sizeable upgrade but I cannot seem to find a repair shop that will do it for me.

I’m grateful to my parents who donated the DNA that made me what I am. But this ageing business is a pain.

 

Grateful to My Motherboard

My life is measured in gigabytes –

An electronic haze

On a universal hard-drive –

I know I’m heading for a crash!

 

I’m trying to back up

My essential core

But there’s simply not enough space –

The programmes all clash.

 

I’ve downloaded a few versions

Into clones with dual input

And new combinations –

But it’s really a bit of a hash!

 

I’ve insufficient memory

To carry out the tasks.

My chip has become dated –

But I’m still giving it a bash.

 

I’m grateful to my motherboard

For the foundation

On which I’m based.

Those paths were clear –

Though life’s one mad dash.

 

It was the seminal floppy

Plugged into the slot,

Streaming in its programmes

That made me loud and brash.

 

Now the programmes are degrading

And I’m moving kind of slow.

The upgrades I’m downloading

Keeping ending up in trash!

 

Opher 2.1.2015

Poetry – Victims of Greed – a poem for the illuminati who are destroying the world.

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Victims of Greed

The big corporate capitalist machine goes forth in search of profit. Buying land to mine and fell and trinkets to sell. There is no law, rule or restriction that can withstand the power of the dollar or the lawyers command.

Armies of brains are deployed, politicians bribed, media purchased and opinions bought.

Sold down the river.

Fed with mindless popular culture entertainment until narcotised and catatonic.

The forests ripped and burnt. The air full of smoke. The wild-life butchered. Nature abused and raped.

Money made.

Progress.

A tiny few prosper from death, war, destruction, poverty and the destruction of the planet. Making a tidy packet out of misery.

Trees topple as the future is sold.

Who profits from war?

Who profits from poverty?

Who profits from ecological disaster?

Who profits from killing the wild-life?

Who runs the big non-tax paying multinationals?

How is it cheaper to employ an army of lawyers than obey laws?

In whose interest is all this misery and destruction?

Who runs the show?

 

What will our grandchildren inherit?

 

Is this the world you want to live in?

 

 

Victims of Greed

 

Acid skies and fermented seas,

Arid lands and drowned trees,

Whirling fury and the great freeze!

Millions of ears all deaf to pleas!

 

Etched away by dollar signs;

Sacrificed to grand designs.

Concrete piles in straight lines –

Plastic world – multitudes of crimes.

 

Bewildered beasts stumble in black smoke

Seeking refuge from hot winds that choke,

The carcinogenic rain in which they soak

And machete madness from which they croak.

 

Majestic giants are toppled to earth,

Felled to the ground though so thick of girth,

Axed to death for all they are worth,

Victims of a plethora of births.

 

Opher – 1.1.2016