Whatever you want to make of it – second by second! You can help make things better or you can be a power-mad, greedy bastard.
Poetry – Nineteen Fourteen
Nineteen Fourteen
It is twenty twenty-two
But in Ukraine
It is nineteen fourteen.
Russia has unleashed
A reign of terror
Like we have rarely seen.
In Chechnya and Syria
They practiced
Their Evil art.
Firing shells and missiles
To blow
The cities apart.
They are digging trenches
One again
In European cities civilisation
Is down the drain.
Putin is gaily singing
Death’s refrain.
It is twenty twenty-two
But in Ukraine
It is nineteen fourteen.
Russia has unleashed
A reign of terror
Like we have rarely seen.
Opher 22.4.2022
We like to think of ourselves as civilised – but we’re not.
We like to think we are intelligent – but we’re not.
We like to think that human civilisation has become advanced – but it hasn’t.
We like to think we have become wise and sophisticated – but we haven’t.
We’re still the same aggressive, violent, stupid, greedy, paranoid apes we’ve always been. We’re still the short-sighted idiots who fight.
Everything is a thin veneer.
Poetry – All Around the World
All Around the World
All around the world
There are mindless men in uniform
With guns, helmets and body armour.
Trained not to think.
They no longer have minds.
They do as they are told.
All around the world
There are arrogant men in power
Who command their minions to do their will.
They do not care about anything
The believe they deserve everything.
We do as we are told.
Opher – 11.6.2020
The various totalitarian states are propped up by mindless goons carrying out orders.
Some enjoy the power.
Some like to have the freedom to indulge their prejudices.
Some like the violence and licence to hurt or kill.
Mindless goons.
Mindless goons propping up tyrants.
Poetry – Who Rules the UK?
Who Rules the UK?
Who rules the UK?
‘Not I’ said the poor man
Struggling to get by,
‘I live out my days
Until the day I die.’
Who rules the UK?
‘Not I’, said the comfortable
Investing all their shares,
‘I’m doing alright
I have no need to care.’
Who rules the UK?
‘Not I,’ said the politician
Who is bought and sold,
‘I just get to vote
The way that I am told.’
Who rules the UK?
‘Not I,’ said the Queen.
‘I am just a figurehead.
Of power
I do not have a shred.’
Who rules the UK?
‘Brussels!’ shout the Brexiteers,
Snarling as they speak.
‘We want that power back
We haven’t got all week!’
Who really rules the UK?
Silence from those who do;
Who own the press
And buy the power;
Who quietly smile
As they watch it go sour.
‘There’s profit to be made
From this pantomime charade!
Opher 17.8.2018
The people who have financed Brexit have done so for their own selfish reasons. They don’t care about the country or the people. They only care about themselves.
Some of them are ideologues. Some of them are speculators. Some of them are mad.
We’ve all been used!
Conexion – A Sci-fi novel – a drug that enables you to journey through your DNA back into the distant past – strange discoveries.
Conexion
In the future it is still all about power.
General Secretary Rheen holds the reins but does he hold the power?
What about the members of the shadowy Consortium who supply the money to get him elected? …
The separatists who are prepared to use violence?
The Unification Movement who would bring the opposition together?
Or the people who democratically vote?
What of the stranded Starship?
And what of the new drug Conexion that opens genetic memories to unlock an unexpected past?
The new Gaia religion?
Or the three massive spherical objects heading for earth?
How will it all come to a conclusion?
Extract
Chapter 1 – As it was
James Hendrix, better known as Jimi to everyone who knew him, noted the first indication at precisely 2.37 and 37 seconds on May 30th 2249.
It was a date that was to go down in history as one of the most auspicious events ever recorded, even though at the time Jimi thought little of it and paid it scant attention.
That was not surprising. Warnings went off routinely as every lump of rock or piece of space junk that was heading anywhere near an inhabited planet was flagged up. Most were of little consequence and would simply burn up in the atmosphere but a few were big enough to cause concern and had to be dealt with. That’s why the agency had been set up.
Jimi assigned the latest intruder a signature code – JHUMA91074 – then he left it to its automatic tracking system and went back to playing Solum with the station’s computer.
JH were his initials, UMA stood for Ursa Major, the segment of space from which the object was first recorded coming in. It was quite an unusual one as could be seen from the low number of recorded warnings, 91074 indicated the number of objects that had originated from that sector.
Once assigned, the computer continued to plot the trajectory and that was normally where the whole matter ended. Most of the debris was considered of no risk and was merely monitored, never to be heard of again. People like Jimi performed the mundane task of acknowledging the warning just as a fail-safe. The Public did not like the idea of there not being a human touch somewhere along the line. They felt that humans should make the decisions even though it had been well proven that computers were far better at it.
There wasn’t a great deal of excitement to be had in Jimi’s work. Being an astrophysicist had sounded great when he’d opted for the training but wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Jimi worked for the AEWC – the Asteroid Early Warning Centre – in its favour, it paid well and at least got one up into vacuum even if that’s as far as it went. For the most part his work consisted of spending long tedious hours on his own every night, pointlessly acknowledging things of no significance that the computer had already done, and vainly hoping for an event of significance to finally take place so that there was at least something to get excited over. The sad fact was that even if a major event did occur then all Jimi had to do was ensure that the computer had passed the information on to his superiors, which it routinely did anyway – so even that wasn’t exactly thrilling.
It was not a pleasant thing to realise that one was in effect redundant and surplus to requirements, so Jimi tried not to think about it too much, which was why he spent most of his time playing games with the computer. Even that enterprise was futile – about as pointless as checking space junk. He knew the computer could beat him hands down every time if it had not been programmed to limit its capabilities in order to give him a fighting chance. Still, it whiled the hours away.
Jimi had not paid too much attention to this particular intrusion other than to note that the object was far too far away at this point in time to be of any importance, so he did not have to register it into his consciousness or grant it a moment’s speculation as to what it might be. A minor niggle did reach the surface of his thoughts; if it was far away and yet had registered it had to be big. But hey, space was full of lumps of rock and the majority of them were of absolutely no significance. Space was big. As long as they did not cross routes or threaten planets they could be disregarded.
It goes to show, doesn’t it? There’s no limit to how wrong a person might be!
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Poetry – Reality is Death
Reality is Death
Stability is the illusion.
Reality is transience.
Mud and blood
Banishing all innocence.
On the battlefields
The innocent are sacrificed.
In games of power
Nothing less will suffice.
Brick and mortar made of dirt,
Built to the sky with sweat.
Missiles and bombs
Pulverise with threats.
A world run by madness;
The chaos of war,
Leaves one wondering
What civilisation is for?
Opher – 27.3.2022
We have been the lucky generation – living our days in peace and stability. It felt as if the world was safe; that we were getting better. How easily that security was undone.
We are never secure.
The world is a dangerous place. We are the most dangerous element of all.
History is littered with our madness, lust for power and greed.
So much is destroyed in an endless cycle of violence.
We build our cities up. We knock them down and rebuild.
What a waste.
So much money that could have been used to create, to improve, to make lives better, to make the world better. Instead we go through this endless cycle of barbarity!
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle… Black Elk
We are all part of the circle of life!!
‘Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle… The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were… and so it is in everything where power moves.’
Black Elk [Heȟáka Sápa]
The populist cycle of division and hate, based on fear and racism, is coming to an end. We need to build a new arc of cooperation, compassion and empathy.
We are entering a new phase of the endless cycle. Everything passes.
Mugged in Broad Daylight!
Yet in France it has only gone up 4%
Poetry – My Existence is Questionable.
My Existence is Questionable.
My existence is questionable.
In a few billion years
No evidence will exist;
No bones,
No fossils,
Not even an impression.
Nothing of my life
Will be remembered
No word
Of any poem
Remain.
Not even a whisper in the wind.
Every atom
That ever sang in my blood
Sent a shock through my brain
Or supported me against the force of gravity
Will be free.
Some of me
Will find its way to stars
To explode through galaxies.
Some of my atoms
Might even incorporate themselves
Into another sentient being.
There may be other words.
Opher – 5.3.2022
How pointless everything really is. How inconsequential.
All our little lives, trivial pursuits, matters of life and death, war and power struggles, wealth and greed. Even the destruction of the entire planet is trivial compared to the immensity of the universe. Our whole galaxy is but a pinprick, a tiny speck.
All our gods, palaces, castles and cathedrals are worthless and insignificant.
Our thoughts, dreams, hopes and aspirations, our fears, worries, anxieties and traumas, our pleasures and pains – all melt into oblivion when death claims our memories.
Yet atoms are perpetual. That is marvellous!
Poetry – Let’s escape!
Let’s escape!
Let’s escape from war!!
Down the humanitarian corridor!
Away from the threats we all deplore!
To the peace we had before!
But peace is an illusion.
Reality is confusion.
The warlord’s solution –
Inevitable conclusion.
Let’s escape from war!!
Down the humanitarian corridor!
Away from the threats we all deplore!
To the peace we had before!
Power and control
Is their only goal.
Through war and begging bowl
They take their toll.
Let’s escape from war!!
Down the humanitarian corridor!
Away from the threats we all deplore!
To the peace we had before!
There is no escape
They have us by the nape,
Use bomb and rape
Create their own landscape.
Let’s escape from war!!
Down the humanitarian corridor!
Away from the threats we all deplore!
To the peace we had before!
Nostalgic dreams ……..
Opher – 7.3.2022
Has the world ever been without war? I don’t think so. It’s an endless cycle.
Just because it has been in Chechnya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Myanmar, Eritrea, has meant that we can gloss over it, but it has never gone away.
The powerful elite, or those aspiring, have been vying to control, suppress, oppress and exert.
Through politics, religion and the promise of social change and justice, there are always those who will rouse others, or direct their followers towards violence.
We’ve never know peace.
The powerful and wealthy seek more power, more control and more wealth.
They’ll never have enough.
Opher's World 