No, not a long table, a long, long, long coffin for the hundreds of thousands that he’s killed. Not forgetting the huge costs, the damage, the destruction, the torture, the agonies, the grief, the hardship, the ruin of lives, the hideousness and gruesome wounds.
While he retires to his multibillion palace in luxury with his family and mistresses.
Power
All the power in the world,
All the flags and oaths,
All pomp and ceremony,
Is arrogant fluff.
All policies and schemes,
All grand manifestos,
All pageant and display,
Nowt but a mirage.
Power
Is only as good
As the faith of the multitudes.
As good
As the charisma
Of the leader.
And what evil
Lies
Within that charisma?
What value
Is there
In faith?
A gnat’s pee on an inferno!
Opher – 3.6.2023
The charade of power persists, magnified by the media, with multitudes on parade and all the symbols of sovereignty.
With their lavish costumes, choreographed performances, lavish settings and armies on display, the pageant of power persists.
An over-inflated balloon that is certain to pop.
Inside all the pomp, ceremony and power, behind the accoutrements, is a flawed person.
If it’s not fortresses or castles it’s churches, temples or mosques.
Power is visible in monuments.
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Before Science
Back before science
They used the shaman
To explain.
He performed
Ritual dances
To bring the rain.
He always ate the choice,
Enjoyed the power.
Was waited on
Every hour.
His pronouncement were the truth –
Explaining mysteries without proof.
They wrote it all down
To become the gospel word.
It mattered little
That most was just absurd.
It did not need
To be true.
As long as people
Stuck to it like glue.
Opher – 26.6.2022
Religion is powerful. It is tribal. Its dress and ritual are intermixed with our cultures
Its messages can be interpreted in many ways. It is always open to interpretation and malleable. Most things can be justified.
The absurdities are glossed over.
The cultural influences carefully ignored.
Everyone is able to pick and choose the bits they want to. It can be used to vilify all war and sanctify war.
The establishment find it very useful. It is used to vindicate them. Its power is deployed. It unifies the tribe.
Putin uses it – appearing with ceremonies and religious patriarchs.
Ukraine uses it. Soldiers cross themselves and die with renewed vigour.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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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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!