Bodies in a Window – The young girl

Posted on by Opher

My new character was a difficult one – a young girl trying to find her way with boys and getting it very wrong.

I based this on a real experience as a Headteacher when the distraught father of a young girl came into school to tell me about what had happened and blaming the school for the boys’ attitudes.

It highlights misogyny, sexism, toxic masculinity and the difficulty of dealing with all those raging teenage hormones. Sexuality is so difficult to deal with. This is the introduction.

Excerpt – Bodies in a Window

I made it my business to keep in with Oz. Oz was the key to Doug. He wasn’t interested in me. I knew that. I was not up there in the A-list. To show the slightest interest in me would have been a black mark against him. That’s how the world works. He was always after chatting up the pretty girls and had no time for a chubby wretch like me. It didn’t worry me much. I wasn’t bothered about Oz that much either. But boys were not, as everybody assumed, only interested in sex; no – they were interested in other things too. They liked sport and fast cars for instance. It paid to know a bit about that – at least to offer an opinion. So I supported West Ham and made sure I knew everything about the players and scores. I’d become quite an expert. I don’t know if it impressed them or just accepted me as one of the lads and didn’t see me as a girl any more. But at least they knew who I was and talked to me. That’s better than being ignored. I could eulogise about all the goals and moves. They were well impressed. They were boring though, those boys. They would talk endlessly about sports cars they would own when they were older. That bored me to death but I happened to know a lot about sports cars. My dad had owned a few so I was able to express an opinion on makes and models. I came out with all the guff my old man kept gushing out about acceleration, gears and top speed. They were well impressed with that too. Not bad for a girl. I couldn’t really understand what there was about sports cars that was special, but they all wanted one. They wanted to look flash and thought that owning a fast car was what it was all about – that it would be good for pulling girls. They talked about that as if I wasn’t there, as if I wasn’t a girl. I suppose they are right. Lots of the girls are impressed with stuff like that. I probably will be when I’m older. But that was all still a long way off. I just associated sports cars with my old man. They left me cold. They were boring.

Doug was different to most of them though. He wasn’t interested in big red sports cars. He liked animals. He was cute. He kept guinea pigs and used to let us go round and help clean them out. I think I’ve always had a crush on him. He’s sweet.

One of the other things boys liked was booze. Oz and Doug both fell into that category and that was where I really came in. My dad and mum had an extensive drinks cabinet and did not miss the odd bottle or two. Not surprisingly they were very lax in that way too. Not only that, but I had plenty of pocket-money – quite enough to supply a lot of drinks. That was more than sufficient to keep Oz on side. He was easy. I knew exactly how to play him.

Doug was friendlier to me than Oz, a lot friendlier, but I knew the score. He was playing the same game as Oz. He was a player, and technically out of my league. He was nice to me though, but he kept his distance. Perhaps he was only interested in me and Les cleaning out his animals. But I didn’t mind. I liked the animals too. I didn’t mind cleaning them out and it got me close to Doug. I knew that he would never ask me out or even dance with me at parties, even when all the pretty girls were taken. Doug tended to go for the older girls – the ones with a bit of experience who would give him what he wanted. But he was nice though. He knew I fancied him rotten but didn’t put me down for it, or mock me like some of the other boys would have done. He was kind to me and that made me fancy him all the more. The dreams I had about him.

Bodies in a Window: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781986269544: Books

Poetry – Death of a Million

Posted on by Opher

Death of a Million

Death of a million species

Absurdly eclipsed by a Prince.

Ecological crisis across the world;

Everywhere has our fingerprints.

Economic growth signals our end

As we put profit first.

Species after species

Fall to our insatiable thirst.

Who cares about the birth of a royal,

As our population soars?

With numbers swamping nature,

Breaking all the natural laws.

Billions of individuals

Will meet an untimely death.

As we destroy everything

That gives us all our breath.

Opher – 6.5.2019

Today the news that we were putting one million species at great risk of extinction was superseded by the news of Harry and Megan’s baby.

For fuck’s sake – where are our priorities?

Hundreds of scientists have contributed to a detailed survey right across the world outlining the impact mankind is having on the natural world. What they paint is a picture of massive accelerating decline that puts not only one million species at risk but our own future with them. Yet the birth of some bloody royal is seemingly more important!

If ever anything demonstrates how we have got our values wrong this must surely be it!

Poetry – Wining to the End

Posted on by Opher

Wining to the End

Last night I sat alone with my bottle of wine

And sipped the tiniest sip of the very last drops.

I swirled the red liquid around the bottom

And saw my reflection in the bottle.

I have loved the most beautiful women

Loved until nothing else mattered;

Wondered at the moon,

Fallen through the stars,

Travelled to the worlds of new ideas,

And seen the best that men can do.

I have tried to make sense of galaxies and cathedrals,

Listened to men whose eyes glinted with passion,

And experienced the greatest lusts.

I have read the most considered words

And wrestled with majestic ideas,

Found causes and ideals I would die for,

And seen the worst of results

From men whose eyes were hard and selfish

Yet glowed with excitement.

I have considered heaven

And imagined hell.

Discovered the greatest minds

And the most depraved,

Drunk myself unconscious,

Opened my mind to wonder,

Art, poems and stories,

Written, daubed and waffled.

I have despaired at both fun

And empty lives,

And sought meaning and fulfillment.

I finally discovered that fulfillment in family, friends and sharing

And the caress of a thousand kind words.

I have travelled and marveled

And taken so many sips and gulps

And now I am at peace savoring these

Last few –

For only in them is the flavour fully distilled.

Opher 24.3.01

Wining to the End

It is good to reach an age when you can look back over a life and feel the wonder. There are many things that you might have done differently but then you would not have been where you are.

Experience gives a person perspective and appreciation.

I have been fortunate to have lived through such times as these, times of peace, freedom and plenty, and to have found so much love and fulfillment.

There are not many periods of history, or places in the world, that have offered such sanctuary, liberty and lack of mind control. England is a gem. It has surely enabled me to blossom.

There are still many mountains I have not climbed and many more I hope to scale. I expect the views to be magnificent.

I hope my grandchildren will experience a world full of challenge and plenty of opportunity, without the fetters that can narrow a young mind.

An imprisoned mind cannot savour the taste of such heady liquor as life brings. A mind needs to be free. Life is a perfectly matured wine, full of body and bursting with flavour, to be sipped and fully appreciated.

Wining to the End

Last night I sat alone with my bottle of wine

And sipped the tiniest sip of the very last drops.

I swirled the red liquid around the bottom

And saw my reflection in the bottle.

I have loved the most beautiful women

Loved until nothing else mattered;

Wondered at the moon,

Fallen through the stars,

Travelled to the worlds of new ideas,

And seen the best that men can do.

I have tried to make sense of galaxies and cathedrals,

Listened to men whose eyes glinted with passion,

And experienced the greatest lusts.

I have read the most considered words

And wrestled with majestic ideas,

Found causes and ideals I would die for,

And seen the worst of results

From men whose eyes were hard and selfish

Yet glowed with excitement.

I have considered heaven

And imagined hell.

Discovered the greatest minds

And the most depraved,

Drunk myself unconscious,

Opened my mind to wonder,

Art, poems and stories,

Written, daubed and waffled.

I have despaired at both fun

And empty lives,

And sought meaning and fulfillment.

I finally discovered that fulfillment in family, friends and sharing

And the caress of a thousand kind words.

I have travelled and marveled

And taken so many sips and gulps

And now I am at peace savoring these

Last few –

For only in them is the flavour fully distilled.

Opher 24.3.01

Poetry – Speed Kills – a poem about priorities.

Posted on by Opher

Speed Kills

 

We are an incredibly violent species. The number of ways we have devised to harness explosive force, gravity and friction to impact on flesh in unpleasant ways is truly amazing.

We are devious and imaginative.

Some are faster than sound. You could not hear them coming, let alone react. You might just glimpse a flash.

Some are slow enough to contemplate as they tumble towards you.

Most you do not even know were on their way.

The deadliest of all is microscopic.

The day will come when we are breathe the latest mutant, sneeze and have time to contemplate our future as a layer in the rocks.

Wouldn’t it be better if we put all that ingenuity into solving problems instead of expending it as fear and hatred?

For all our cruise missiles, H-Bombs and bullets, there is not a single effective anti-viral drug. Have we got our priorities right?

 

Speed Kills

 

2,600 feet per second

Can be the speed of death –

As a bullet flies.

Twice the speed, you’d need,

To hear it coming.

 

733 feet per second

Is slow enough to hear

The missile come,

As it is guided down the street

To land at your feet.

 

At 32.2 feet per second per second

You can watch a barrel-bomb drop

And slowly spin in slow motion;

Hear it whistle its tune,

Before it delivers its load

And your world explodes.

 

At 2500 feet per second

A shell has already

Blasted people to fragments

Before its shriek arrives –

No surprise.

 

At 329 feet per second

An arrow is slow.

Slow enough to watch?

Slow enough to duck?

You’d need a little luck.

 

At 146 feet per second

A sneeze is the slowest of all –

Apart from the soft lunge of a knife,

Or the long wait of starvation,

But in the end

Will prove the most effective

At removing a species that has proved itself defective.

 

Opher 29.5.2016