Words is a collection of short stories, anecdotes and writings accumulated over the last few years.
Some were written for fun; some have a more serious tone. Hopefully some will make you laugh, some will make you cry and others make you angry.
Poetry – Fairy Tales (for Dewin)
Fairy Tales
Nobody ever dies!
They merely pass away
Becoming angels and stars.
We’ll meet again
In a future life
On a planet North of Mars.
They do not die
They merely sleep
And gently slip away.
They are up in heaven
Waiting for us
To come along to play.
There is no death.
They rest in peace
Shuffle off the coil.
Give up the ghost
Join the host
And never have to toil.
Opher – 4.5.2020
I hate these euphemisms, lies and fairy tales.
Death hurts. It’s a loss – sometimes so difficult to come to terms with.
But do we really need to sugar-coat it? It isn’t a sleep, a portal into an infinite blissful after-life. It’s an end.
Death comes. Our consciousness falls apart. We are no longer there. It is the end.
We will not meet again. It will not be a blissful reunion and ecstasy forever.
The idea seems absurd to me. It is just a defence mechanism we adopt to try to come to terms with the finality of it. Our loved ones are gone and we will never see them again.
It is so hard.
Our own death seems so unreal. But one day we will no longer exist.
The universe will go on without us until it too burns out.
Life is what we do in the moment.
Poetry – The Alphabet of Life
The Alphabet of Life
Each letter, each word,
Each sentence, paragraph and chapter
Is precious.
Any loss leaves a hole
In the telling of our tale.
We become as impoverished
As empty
As the blank pages
We create.
What profiteth a man
When he has gained
The whole sterile globe
But lost
More than he will ever know?
Opher 25.6.2018
The Alphabet of Life
I was thinking about the incredible DNA molecule that spells out the alphabet of life. Back in the beginning that first amazing molecule started the ball rolling. We have all descended from that. We are all related. Every single cell of life is wondrous, precious and miraculous.
Yet we are destroying life at an increasing rate, driving species after unique species into extinction. Yet every single species is precious.
We should certainly respect it more!!
Conversations with the dead
Conversations with the dead
Today I was looking at my rows of shelves
Where I still have conversations with the dead.
Yesterday I was sharing a joke with Vonnegut and laughing silly,
Having sex in the woodshed with Lawrence,
Getting high with Kerouac in a Mexican Brothel
And shooting at fascists with Hemingway.
I speak to them through the years
And they communicate with me.
Their immortality speaks volumes.
Their words never die.
Their thoughts and dreams are precious.
Today I was looking at the rows of lives that line my mind and rooms,
That shared their imaginations with me,
Who advise me still, inspire and enthrall.
My life would be so much the paler without their words in my head.
I learn so much, am so moved, by my conversations with the dead.
Opher 27.4.2018
A stacked bookshelf is a sign of intelligent life. I do not know where I’d be without reading. Certainly my life would be impoverished.
That bookshelf contains a million lives, millions of experiences, thoughts, people and friends. I find out how they think and feel and share a segment of their lives and they enrich mine.
There is something archaically wonderful about books. Telling stories is one of the oldest traditions of human beings. It is hardwired into our hearts. Those authors may be no longer with us but their genius still rings true. They converse with us from the grave. Their spirit will always live.
Poetry – Before We Knew Anything
Before We Knew Anything
Before we knew anything
We thought
The sun and moon
Were god.
Before we knew about stars
We made
Mystery
Of everywhere
We trod.
There was no end
To the tales
We thought up;
The ideas
We invented.
With allegiance
To fictions
Out of our minds
That were
Quite demented.
We created ritual
Thought up nations
Manufactured culture
Had systems
That we
Implemented.
Now we are victims
Of our own organisation
Slaves of a society
Of our own creation.
Opher – 6.2.2021
Civilisation is a system based on myths that unite us and harness our energy.
Social cohesion is what has been behind our success. It enabled us to work together to achieve incredible feats.
We elevated men and women to kings and queens, emperors and bishops, imams and priests and gave them power.
We created religions, nations and culture – all fictions.
We practiced xenophobia, racism and misogyny and used it to justify genocide, invasion and slavery.
Now we are global.
It is time to do away with the frippery and become real.
One world – one people.
One planet.
Time to create a new story – a real one this time – one that can unite us all and enable even greater feats.
Time to shed the old out-dated narratives – we’ve outgrown them. The nations, religions and cultures need to be consigned to the past.
We need a global vision.
Poetry – King
King
When I become King of the world
I shall be absurd.
My first act will be to abolish
Every unpleasant word
(Along with all the concepts
Through which they have occurred).
They shall all be consigned
To the depths of outer space
To be left without a trace.
Top of my list will be guilt
Evil and war,
Followed by torture, greed
And poor.
Then I shall eradicate intolerance
Dishonesty and unfair;
Make everybody cheerful with more words
For happiness and care.
Love, respect and empathy
Shall replace arrogance and hate
So please get all your suggestions in
Before it gets too late.
When I am king of the world
The changes will be quite absurd,
For I am a man of my word.
Hurry please
Time is short.
The election is soon
I am doing all I ought.
There is much to change
I am eager to rearrange
The alphabet
On your marks –
Get set!
OPHER 25.3.00
Sometimes I am frivolous and silly. I had this notion that if we merely banished all the unpleasant words that all those horrible things might simply disappear.
What whimsy.
If only things were that easy.
Even so, if everyone was to get together and elect me king of the world I would be sure to put everything right and sort all the problems out – honest!
Starsky and Hutch and a carton of milk – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.
You couldn’t walk in most of Los Angeles. There were no sidewalks. Everyone drove.
I drove to the supermarket, just two blocks away, to get some milk. I pulled into the huge car-park and was cruising along in my VW camper van looking for a space near to the entrance when a car shrieked past me at huge speed and, with a screech of tyres producing a cloud of smoke, broadsided in front of a big Chevvy van that was chugging down the next aisle. At the same time a similar car performed the same action from the other direction so that the two cars were now blocking the van in. Simultaneously two other cars screamed up behind the big van and also screeched to a halt in a pall of smoke. The van was now completely hemmed it in. For a moment it was as if everything was on pause. The van had halted. I had jammed on the brakes and come to a stop and was watching the scene on auto. The blue tyre smoke slowly drifted off over the parked cars. Then it went bananas. All the doors of the four cars flew open and armed men jumped out. Sixteen guys crouched behind the open doors pointing guns at the Chevvy van.
My mouth dropped open. This was like the movies. I was frozen.
I could see one of the guys from behind the Chevvy come out from behind his protective door, edge along the side of the van with his gun cocked up in the air at the ready, towards the front of the Chevvy.
A helicopter buzzed down overhead.
The guy reached the door, reached up to the handle and flung the door open, jumping to the side and levelling his gun at the occupants, young white guys in their twenties, who had their hands raised in the air. He then reached in, grabbed the guy in the passenger seat, yanked him out of the van and roughly flung him on the ground. Most probably the same thing was happening on the driver’s side but I couldn’t see that. The other guys with the guns began coming out from behind their doors, still training their guns on the van, and fanning out to cover the van The guy I was watching stood on the passenger’s head with his boot and pointed his gun at his head. There was a lot of shouting.
I was twenty feet away stationery, gawping like an idiot at a scene that was like something out of Starsky & Hutch. It had all happened so fast.
What if they had started shooting? I was right in the middle of it. What was it all about? A drugs bust? Some gang or other? A routine check? Even for America, it was a bit OTT.
“Excuse me sir, can we see your driving licence, please?”
Where was my camera? I always had my camera with me. I’d left it at home. How could I have done that? I would loved to have had some photos of the action. I could have taken some stunning shots of men with guns, helicopters and action.
Just another day in LA.
19.9.01
I’m one crazy, innocent, fifty-two-year-old mother-fucker. But nowhere near as crazy as I think I am.
18.9.01
Conker Season
Conker Season
We are in the conker season. Back when I was a boy this would have been a time of great competitive activity.
Conkers was a boys’ game! Girls did not participate. It was considered a macho sport. Boys delighted in being loud and aggressive. There was a violent element to it!
First there was the collecting. Every conker tree around was beset by hordes of kids throwing sticks up at the clumps of conkers. Whenever a clump of prickly fruits was hit they would come showering down accompanied by yells of triumph. The victor would rush to collect his spoils, stamping on the prickly cases to release the shiny brown nuts inside – the glorious conkers.
Every morning the ground underneath the trees would be inspected to glean any that had fallen in the night.
Every boy had a collection of conkers at home from which he selected the biggest, hardest and heaviest in the hopes that they would be winners.
The second stage was the preparation. Everybody had their own secret preparation. Some soaked them in vinegar and swore that it made the skin tough and leathery. Some slowly heated them in the oven until they were hard as rocks. It was suspected that some tried to cheat by injecting in glue or cement!
The third stage was the piercing. It sounds easy but in fact was a crucial art. The skin had to be pierced with a skewer and carefully bored through and out the other side. Care had to be taken not to split the shell or the kernel inside. One had to retain the intrinsic strength of the nut. Choosing the angle and place to drill through was also a matter for debate. It was an art. Piercing introduced weakness. If the shell of the fruit was split the fissure would open up in contest and your conker would be split in two. Piercing could take place before or after preparation. It was all part of the philosophy and technique.
The fourth stage was the stringing – using a skewer to push the string through without damaging the conker, then tying the knot. Everyone tried to create a big knot so that it did not slip through the conker when it was struck. The theory was that a big knot helped absorb the force of the impact.
Armed with a bunch of conkers we would begin the fray. The playgrounds were alive with the shouts of glee and despair as conkers were smashed together.
Boys were rushing around challenging each other. The challenger had first three hits.
The challenged held up his conker at strings length. It was important to wrap the string around a finger so that the impact did not smash the conker out of your hand and down onto the concrete where it could be damaged. People always gathered round to watch. They acted as referees – always eager to pass comment as loudly as they could. If the challenged flinched, or moved the conker, the challenger received an extra hit and the crowd jeered their disdain. The art was to hold it softly so that the impact was absorbed and show no fear.
The challenger wrapped the string around his fingers, took aim and tried to strike the conker as squarely as possible, attempting to get as much downforce as they could. A short string made for more accuracy but less force. A long string meant you often missed but when you hit it could be fatal for the conker struck. The danger to the challenged was that you could whack them on the hand. But that was all part of the game. Some boys delighted in hitting you and if you flinched or cried out everyone jeered and you lost face. You were expected to take your painful knocks without making a fuss.
If the conker of the challenged survived it was their turn to have three hits against the challenger. If the strings became entangled the first person to shout out ‘Strings’ received an extra hit. Thus it alternated until one or other of the conkers was smashed to pieces.
If your conker was the winner it was a oner. If it had defeated two others it was a twoer. I once had a monster conker that was a twentyfiver.
Towards the end of break the whole playground was littered in bits of smashed conkers. The caretaker was never too happy.
By the end of conker season it was time to move on. There were guys to be made, penny for the guy to be carried out, bonfires to be built and fireworks to be bought. Conkers were soon forgotten. The season was short.
Today I picked up a bunch of conkers to teach my grandchildren the art. There were no children throwing sticks up at the trees or stamping on the prickly cases, no shouts of glee from the playgrounds or smashed conkers littering the floor.
It seems the ancient art of conkers is sadly sliding into history.
Anecdote – Shocking the Isle of Man
Shocking the Isle of Man
At the end of the second year of my Biology degree we had to go on a field course. I do not know who made the decision but the powers that be had settled on the Isle of Man.
My Biology group were basically a bunch of Long-hair freaks, some girls who were not quite so extreme and a few guys who had come in from Africa and Pakistan and were a bit bemused by the radical sixties culture they had been thrown into the middle of.
The whole motley crew were put on a plane with lots of equipment and set loose on a quiet, sleepy town on the Island. It was like stepping back in time to the fifties.
We spent the days off round the cliffs clambering about and having a laugh. In the evening we had to produce a report on the wonderful research we had been carrying out.
At the end of the week there was a dance at the village hall and we decided to go along for a bit of fun. We all turned up at the dance wearing our best clothes. That largely consisted of jeans with colourful tops, the odd scarf and kaftan.
We were met at the door by a very stern looking gentleman who took one look at this bunch of long haired freaks reeking of London decadence, drugs, licentious sex and depravity and refused us entry.
We challenged the reason and he explained that we did not have the necessary jackets and ties to meet the dress code.
Undeterred we set off round to the back entrance. The doorman was smarter than he looked. He had seen what we were trying to do and hurried through the place to the back entrance.
‘Did you know you’ve got a twin brother on the front door?’ John Smith quipped. The doorman was not amused.
Plan B was called for. We went back to our hotel. The overseas students were always attired with jackets, ties and shirts. All we had to do was borrow some for the night.
We returned to the dance-hall in an assortment of ill-fitting jackets and ties. Ties did not go with kaftans or the type of paisley clothes that we were wearing. We looked weirder than weird. But we were in high spirits. This was indeed the best laugh we’d had all week.
The ill-tempered doorman inexplicably could not find a reason to refuse us entry. In his eyes we complied with the letter of the law and although he was not at all happy he could not come up with a reason for refusing us entry. He was a man who followed procedure to the letter. We had complied.
We had not been in for more than minutes when we were asked to leave. The dance had turned out to be some out-dated type of Disco playing some ghastly Pop songs. We had taken to the floor and were prancing around like loons much to the amazement of the rather staid, old-fashioned looking local youths who appeared to consisted of bewildered escapees from the fifties. To them we were a bunch of wild freaks from London more strange that a shipload of monsters from Mars. Their eyes were bugging!
Evidently we were not allowed to prance! We were being much too wild. Our behaviour was unseemly.
Outside the dance-hall we negotiated a return. We had to guarantee we would not freak out the dance and prance. We agreed.
This was getting better by the minute.
We were back on the floor dancing in slow motion like sloths on mogadon and sending the atrocious music up no end.
We were asked to leave again by the group of stern faced parents, led by Mr Doorman, who were acting as bouncers.
Once more outside the dancehall we complained and argued that we had complied with instructions; we were no longer prancing wildly.
We were told that it was not good enough. On the Isle of Man there was a convention that you danced with girls. We were in breach of the convention. Once again we negotiated our way back in and promised not to dance on our own. I think they let us back in because they were worried what trouble we might cause if they left us outside.
Back inside we found that the local girls, much to the annoyance of Mr Grumpy, his retinue of trainee grumpies, and the local youths, who, thinking they were the height of cool, all looking like extras from a documentary on Merseybeat, all wanted to dance with us. We had a great time delighting the girls with our wild moves while the local lads glowered at us. The girls loved it.
It didn’t last long though. Mr Grumpy had seen quite enough. The local constabulary arrived and we were escorted out. The girls came with us and we all went back to our hotel for a party.
It certainly made for a memorably night out. I’d never been thrown out of a dance five times before that night.
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Anecdote – The spider and the bench
The spider and the bench
Within the confines of the warehouse there were many spiders. They hid among the boxes and probably roamed the empty building at night in search of prey.
A monster of a spider, as large and hairy as any tarantula, though possessing much longer and spindly legs, had been captured by one of the regular lads. He kept it shut up in a box. It was his special pet and he delighted in tormenting us with it.
At tea-break we would all go along to the canteen. There was a great long trestle table. We would sit along the sides on benches and share stories and jokes while we drank our tea.
The discourse was nowhere near as erudite as I was later to find among the council workers. The road-sweepers and bin-men seemed a hot-bed of socialist politics and were well-read into the bargain. In the café with the council workers I was bombarded with illustrated accounts of social history and urged to read C P Snow and Robert Tressell. In the warehouse there was no such content. The humour was of an earthy nature and level of conversation mundane.
My sixteen year old body was merely grateful for a rest. My muscles ached from hefting heavy boxes.
But that place was rarely restful. Most times the lad would bring his box to the table and release his pet spider to scuttle up and down. He delighted in the shrieks it produced from the girls. The lads did not shriek. They merely watched it with bored expressions and drank tea from their mugs.
Despite my terror of spiders I feigned the same indifference. I well knew that if I was to let on that I was uneasy about that monstrous, evil arachnid I would have been the focus of special attention and my life would become unbearable. The last thing I wanted was to have that monster thrown in my face, or worse, put down my neck.
Tea-breaks were an ordeal.
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