Poetry – A Tessellated Dream

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Opher

A Tessellated Dream

I live in a world of strings

Lost in a few dimensions.

Reality is lost to my eyes

As I inhabit our inventions.

The macrocosm and microcosm

Are invisible to me

And time is fleeting

In this reality.

For there is no such thing

As substance or stability

The illusion is convincing though

I struggle to really see.

I’m very leery of the m-theory.

Things are not what they seem to be.

All time exists as a single moment

And in the quantum universe

Things exist and don’t exist

It’s really quite perverse.

This world may not be as it seems

As we splutter out of these tessellated dreams.

Opher – 5.9.2020

Mother

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Opher

Mother

Slowly, circuitously she approached.

Her eyes fixed on him.

Not wanting to arrive.

Reaching his side she squatted and poked him with her finger.

He did not stir.

She picked him up and shook him

As if trying to wake him from a dream.

His head lolled.

It was no dream.

Already his body was cooling;

Giving its heat to the warm air.

A low moan escaped her lips.

She sat back on her haunches

Cradling him to her breast,

Into her fur,

As if the warm of her body

Might revitalise him.

Her vacant eyes stared.

She began to rock back and forth

Like a metronome.

Two hours passed.

She was still rocking.

Opher 6.9.2020

I wrote this after seeing a video of a chimpanzee trying to deal with the horror of her dead baby.

Fake Memories

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Opher

Fake Memories

Fake memories

Fake fears

Fake News

Fake tears

Rousing the faithful

Feeding the lies

Inflaming the emotions

Deaf to the cries

False truth

False fed

False economy

Falsely led

Deliberately stoked

For selfish gain

Cynically oblivious

To the generated pain

Fake news feeding real crimes

Fake smiles for our times

Fake sincerity for personal gain

Fake compassion masking real pain

Real people hypnotised

Following blindly

The veiled disguise.

Ignoring all the shouts

Of the truly wise.

Led up the garden path

That’s built of where’s and why’s.

Opher 23.6.2018

Fake Memories

How to pick your way through the exaggerations and lies that are trotted out to frighten us?

I think we are being manipulated for political reasons! Even our memories are fake!

We no longer believe experts and are instructed to ignore them. Now we believe the headlines of the tabloid press.

Strange things happen

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Opher

Strange things happen

Strange things happen in a universe

Where the laws of physics conform

To the perverse.

Nothing can be more peculiar

That the laws that pertain

To nuclear.

Anything is possible

In infinity.

Creating worlds

Of possibility.

Where carbon’s

Strange agility

Combines with Oxygen

And hydrogen’s ability

To create a woven web

Of life’s history.

Spelt in bases helical

Consciousness is chemical.

Strange things happen in a universe

Where the laws of physics conform

To the perverse.

Opher – 29.8.2022

Many things are beyond our understanding – such as how a bunch of chemicals have come to think and speak, to wonder and emote.

Many things are beyond our comprehension such as the infinite nature of the universe, the vastness of space, the enormity of matter and the unending nature of time.

My chemicals ponder.

Life is perverse.

Bukowski

The Beast

There’s a cage

And there’s a beast.

I choose to cage me.

Opher – 27.12.2019

I was thinking about Bukowski’s descriptions of himself as a child, as Henry. Bullied and afraid.

The world outside was vicious.

We all have a front we put on in the face of the universe. Charles chose to have a projection of decadence – extreme drinking, sex and smoking.

Yet he was isolated, apart and protective of an inner self.

Manilla

In the park they were filming some strange production of what looked like Beauty And The Beast. Couldn’t be sure as nobody spoke English.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is dscn5614.jpg

Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty and the Beast, film set, Manilla, Manilla – on the Film Set

Poetry – All is not what it seems

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Opher

All is not what it seems

All may not be as it seems

As substance melts

Before the microscope,

As reality

Becomes subjective,

As mind impacts on matter.

For all of us,

Everything,

Might exist

In two places

At the same time

And misbehave

When watched.

Perhaps imagination

Is taking

A central role

In modelling

The world?

Opher – 16.12.2019

I am always amazed by the latest discoveries of science. They are much stranger than fiction, more extraordinary than any religion.

It seems that particles arrive before they leave,

That things can exist in two places at the same time

And energy behaves differently when watched.

Forget Schrodinger’s cat! It’s dead alive!

Perhaps they will find that we shape the universe with our imaginations?

Perspective

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Opher

Perspective

Like an ant on a leaf

Contemplating what may be underneath.

Life is too brief.

Like a bacterium in a toilet bowl

Trying to fathom some higher goal;

Stuck in a minor role.

Life, life is so weird;

Stranger than we feared.

The universe is not geared;

Understanding is never neared.

Space is so vast

Though light is so fast

We see into the past

But it leaves us all aghast.

Like a moth around a light

Understanding the orbit of its flight

With all its might.

Like duckweed in a pond

Thinking about what may be beyond;

It can’t abscond.

Like a human in his small life

With work, child and wife;

The daily strife.

Looking for a purpose

Above the daily curse

That doesn’t make things worse.

Life, life is so weird;

Stranger than we feared.

The universe is not geared;

Understanding is never neared.

Opher – 25.8.2022

Given the amazing size of the universe and the tininess of our brains it’s incredible that we understand any of it.

In the past we created religions and gods to make sense of what we fail to understand.

We’d rather believe in mysticism than reality.

Yet the universe has enough wonder without us creating layers more.

Life is miraculous enough without us imagining unreal layers.

We are no different to the ant, bacterium, moth or duckweed.

Changes

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Opher

Changes

Everything’s the same

Until it changes.

Stays the same

Then rapidly rearranges

Life’s so strange.

We think it lasts forever.

In the face of infinity

We find we’re not so clever.

Day segues into day

Til finally they run out.

Final minutes fade.

That’s what it’s all about.

Oblivion to oblivion.

Something to nothing.

Life into death:

Lines that we are fluffing.

Opher – 1.12.2022

Death hangs over us in its many forms. Part of us knows that it will call one day but we chose to ignore that. In youth we challenge it. With age and experience, coupled with the loss of many that we love, we respect it more.

Our lives go on much the same, day after day, then, suddenly it all changes. We face death.

The universe rearranges itself.

Life is change. That’s reality. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing stays the same.

The Sun Don’t Mind

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Opher

The Sun Don’t Mind

There’s a war in Ukraine

But the sun don’t mind.

Though millions starve

It will continue to shine.

One day I’ll die

But eternity won’t care.

My mind will cease,

My atoms everywhere.

While we’re fed conspiracy

The universe expands

Unaware of devastation

Oblivious to our plans.

Fleas on an elephant,

A tear in the ocean.

Voyagers on a rock

Living without a notion.

So big in our heads

So tiny in reality.

An invisible flash

In the uterus of infinity.

Opher – 25.6.2022

So important to bring things into perspective.

We take ourselves too seriously.

Yet our lives are important.

The wonder of life is quite unique.

We take so much for granted.

We are busy trashing paradise for a pocket full of baubles.

How can we give this life purpose?

poetry