Terror
Oppression and terror
Throughout the land
Blood on the streets
Blood on their hands
Hijabs in chains
In god’s name
Bullets from snipers
In the vale of shame
Opher 14.1.2026
For all the brave men and women standing up for freedom in the streets of Iran.
The oppressive corrupt power of religion.
May they not simply replace one set of despots with another.
Osama Bin Laden wanted to destabilise the West. That’s precisely what he has done.
He unleashed a wave of Jihadist terrorism. He flew planes into the twin towers and planted devastating bombs in London.
That sparked two senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, empowered Iran and destabilised the entire region. We then saw ISIS and Boko Haram and more Islamic mayhem. Syria, Sudan and Libya went into civil war.
This all sparked waves of mass immigration.
The fear of Muslims and massive immigration fuelled nationalistic fervour and paved the way for simplistic populist morons to seize an opportunity.
In Britain we ended up with the incompetent muppet Johnson getting elected. Then together with Farage, Tice, Gove and Cummings they broke up the EU and engineered a disastrous Brexit.
In the USA it paved the way for ultra-nationalistic Tea Party nutters to morph into MAGA under the lunacy of a scheming self-serving Trump (presently lining his pockets with billions).
We still have mass immigration.
The EU is splintered resulting in Putin seizing his opportunity.
Britain is broken with Brexit draining our economy.
The USA is in the hands of a narcissistic moron who sides with the enemies of the West and ditches allies.
Putin seized the opportunity to invade Ukraine because of the state the EU and USA were in.
Netanyahu got the go-ahead from Trump for genocide in Gaza.
Right-wing racists are now empowered and are setting policies here and in the USA.
The West is divided, impoverished and in chaos.
Osama Bin Laden achieved everything he set out to do! He won hands down!
Phobia
Two sun-bronzed eight-years-old ragamuffins, dirt magnets, bark-stained, scabby-kneed, free and wonderfully contented. Cars a rarity, the streets of our estate a playground. Endless summer days, hot and sunny. Breakfasts rushed so we could be out. Outside. Free. Every minute precious. Rushing in, gulping meals and back out, out until the hunger gnawed at our stomachs and forced us to refuel.
Sometimes a little gang of us, around a dozen, sometimes a few and sometimes just me and Chris. We’d set up a cardboard box as a wicket and play cricket, or we’d hold mini Olympics with milk bottle tops as medals, or race carts imagining them as Roman chariots. Always on the go. Playing all day until it got too dark to see. Sometimes Chris and I would roller skate, walk around on stilts, bob on pogos, climb trees, build dens or play tennis for hour after golden hour. On occasion my sister and a few others would play block or rounders with us. The older boys taught us to ride bikes, fire homemade catapults, spit cherry stones, scrump peaches and flick our football cards at walls for swapsies. We’d play kingy with them and thrill as they hurled tennis balls at us with all their might. Life was full. Exciting. Idyllic. Bruises were part of the deal.
This particular day we were playing hide and seek in David’s garden. That’s when it happened.
Giggling and trying to be quiet we hid but were useless. The older boys always pounced and teased us unmercifully. We were their playthings. But that was OK. We looked up to them. Sought to emulate them. Our day would come. Being with the older boys was exciting.
Outside the back door of David’s was a white enamel bucket with a dark blue rim. The picture is imprinted in my head. Somebody noticed that there was an enormous dark brown hairy house spider trapped in the pail, so big its legs actually touched all the sides at once as it sinisterly squatted as still as a deadly tarantula.
We all had to peep, daring each other to come near and peer into that bucket. The older boys baited us, teasing us. Jostling. Pushing. Nobody had ever seen a spider so big. Shudders raced through me, my heart thundered but I had to look. Eyes wide and mouths open, we peered at it. So huge. So hairy. And those long legs. Terrifying yet intriguing. We couldn’t drag ourselves away and kept sneaking back for another look.
When one of the boys poked it with a stick we shrieked but were frozen like statues. Intrigued. Paralysed. The massive beast burst into action, scurrying around as lively as a scared rabbit, its legs scrabbling, trying to gain purchase on the smooth enamelled walls. All of us consumed by the horror, the thought of it gaining traction and shooting over the rim, darting towards us like a nightmare unleashed. Mesmerised, held partly by magnetic fascination and part primitive terror, we were trapped in its thrall. We had to watch as the boy teased it into frenzy.
Our shrieks and screams and naked dread seemed to encourage the older boys. They were excited by our reaction, our terror. To our complete disbelief one of the bigger boys darted his hand into the bucket and grabbed that huge spider. That was it. The spell was broken. In blind panic we ran. My mind was shrieking in my head. I seemed to know what was going to happen.
Chris was streaking ahead of me as we hurtled up the side of the bungalow and out into the street, screaming, panicking. Desperate to escape. We fanned out as the bigger boy pounded after us holding that huge spider out in front of him. Delighting in his power. Drunk on our terror. We were no match. He charged around chasing us down, gleefully threatening, thrusting the spider towards us, leering and chortling at the top of his voice as we frantically screamed and raced around in circles, searching for escape. He easily outpaced us, waving the spider towards our faces, buoyed up by our hysteria; the naked terror of our wide-eyed expressions, our desperate wails.
Chris was always faster than me. He careered ahead darting away. I could hear the boy behind. Catching up catching up, almost upon me. His guffaws and ecstatic yells resounded in my ears. The excitement in his voice a spur to my terror. I knew what was going to happen. I knew. Frantic, I ran and weaved. Shrieked and bobbed. No matter how frantic, I was no match. I could not escape. He’d selected me. Grabbing my shoulder he spun me round gleefully thrusting the spider towards my face. I saw Chris turn and come to a halt his face a picture of repulsion and disbelief. Then the boy thrust his hand down my shirt. I don’t remember any more. My mind froze.
Disbelief. Utter disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Mind a whirlpool: relief, horror, excitement, relief, disbelief, horror, relief, guilt, horror. Face aghast. Silent. Imagination in hyperdrive. Disbelief. Face aghast. Breath frozen. Heart thumping. Horror. Relief. Guilt. Disbelief. Curiosity.
I saw the hand with that huge spider dive into Jeff’s polo shirt. I saw it come back out minus the spider. Time stood still. Even the boy seemed in shock at what he had done and backed slowly away, shaken by Jeff’s distraught reaction. He knew he’d gone too far. Jeff stood as still as a statue, rigid, in the middle of the grey concrete road, his arms out in a crucifix, staring up at the sky, mouth a cavern, mad-eyed, great guttural, primal, blood curdling shrieks tearing out of his throat. Sounds so blood-curdling they sounded unhuman.
We all slinked further away forming a wide circle, lurking, watching silently. Awestruck and helpless. Transfixed. Shocked. Unable to take our eyes off Jeff. Unable to act. Awaiting the outcome. Eyes straining. Watching for the spider to emerge.
Eventually a neighbour came out to see what the fuss was about. Someone explained to her in a hushed voice. I saw her face transform to one of great concern. She began peeling Jeff’s clothes off until he was stark naked. Searching. First his polo shirt, then shorts and finally his underpants. It was not easy. Jeff as rigid as marble, his limbs not bending. All the while the shrieking continuing in a throat-ripping background cacophony. We were all waiting in silence, rapt, waiting. It never appeared. Someone brought a blanket out and draped it round Jeff. The shrieking subsided into blubbering. His mother arrived and he was escorted home.
But where was that spider? Nowhere to be seen. It had spirited itself away into my nightmares.
(I’ve tried using fragments instead of sentences. Repeating words. Scrapping verbs and pronouns. Varying length of sentences and deploying strings of words to create pace, express emotion and convey immediacy. Not sure if it works. The POV proved difficult.)
Sweet Melodies
They play sweet melodies
Inside the electric fences of Auschwitz.
An orchestra of inmates
Driven to excellence
By the threat of terror.
They serenade the prisoners
As they are marched to death
With joyful tunes of carnival
To breathe with their last breath.
Notes rise in the air
To mingle with the smoke;
Rising above the putrid stink
That dissipates all hope.
Opher – 27.12.2024
I wrote this while watching the tattooist of Auschwitz. An orchestra serenaded the newly arrived as they went to be sorted. A bunch of Nazi troopers watched, eager to execute any that failed to provide the right note. They projected a gay, jaunty melody. Behind them the chimneys belched smoke.
Feel The Hate
I could feel the hate
As we barrelled down the street.
Memories of Ivan and Mihail
Splattered on concrete.
Expecting to die.
Flinching at every sound.
Bracing for the explosion
To send me oblivion bound.
The old man came cycling around the corner
He saw us up ahead.
I saw his terrified eyes.
Pulled the trigger. He was dead.
Opher – 7.4.2022
I was watching on the news. There was a drone videoing as a cyclist was shot dead by the advancing Russians in Buccha. The street was littered with civilians they had shot.
I wondered why. What was the reason? Why indiscriminately kill civilians.
Putin’s Dust
Bedding to ashes
Houses to dust
Sure and certain
Cities resurrected
Traumatised people
Suffer eternally.
Pounded to rubble
Killed to be saved
Liberators in khaki
Dispensers’ of death
Following orders
Mindless madness.
Committed to the ground
Flesh to earth
Pulverised
To pulp
Grandiose plans
Paranoia and power.
Curtains to ashes
Children to dust
Futures to earth
Hope to rust!
Dreams dissolved
Horrors unleashed.
Time does not heal!
Time does not heal!
Time does not heal!
Time just moves on.
It moves on
And takes the stains with it.
Opher – 31.3.2022
War traumatises all who come into contact with it. It traumatises. It breaks minds. It ruins lives
The jigsaw puzzles cannot be put back together.
Minds are broken, damaged.
There is a stain that lasts forever.
It damages the victors as much as the victims.
Putin will suffer.
Is this why we put psychopaths in charge? Because they have no feelings for the suffering they instigate?
Is this why we elect sociopaths because they enjoy inflicting pain?
Are these leaders human?
Do they not become disturbed by the death and suffering they unleash?
Cities are rebuilt but the stains remain.
People cannot be rebuilt. The survivors are often the unlucky ones.
Part of them is forever destroyed.
War.
Nothing can ever be normal again.
Not For Me
Not for me the trauma of shattered mind
Or blown off limbs.
Not for me a life ruined
Family and friends dead
Or for meagre rations queuing
As aspiration dims.
Not for me the constant terror
Waiting for the missile blast.
I’ve lived a privileged life
And I want it to last.
So I’ll support the UN
And the EU too.
Both far from perfect
But I think they’ll do.
I’ll work for a unified world
In which petty nationalism has been expelled.
For I know that in talk and trade
Better relationships are made.
Opher – 30.9.2019
I am probably the first generation who was not thrown into the cauldron of war. Hence I am not traumatised.
War is a monster.
It is a monster that needs putting to sleep.
There is nothing new about the use of terror as a weapon of war.
Alexander the Great used the tactics in his war with the against the Persians, way back in 332 BC. He was so furious at the way the fortified island city of Tyre held out against him, forcing him to waste much time and energy to defeat them, (it took months and he had to construct a causeway out to the island in order to capture the city) that he made an example of them. His idea was that everyone else should see what happened to people who resisted him.
He destroyed the city. Sold 30,000 into slavery and massacred 8,000 civilians. He had them crucified on the beach for everyone to see.
The message soon got round. Many came over to his side to escape his wrath and people were terrified to stand against him.
We can see the same tactics being used by ISIL. Nowadays they use social media to show mass beheadings, people locked in cars and blown up with rocket launchers, underwater film of people being drowned as they are slowly lowered into the water, people have their heads blown off with plastic explosive, being buried alive, thrown off high building, slowly crushed and people being burnt alive in cages. It is barbaric and gruesome, cruel, heartless and callous (and all in the supposed name of religion!) but, in the short term it is highly effective.
As with Alexander the Great it sends terror into the hearts of the enemy. Despite the fact that the Iraqi troops far outnumbered the ISIL troops ISIL have been able to take places like Palmira. The Iraqi troops were so terrified at the thought of what would happen to them if they were caught that they ran away.
In the long term it will lead to the utter annihilation of ISIL. The revulsion for their tactics will unite civilised people in opposing them. Even pacifist like myself are so repulsed by their primitive inhumanity that they want them, and their intolerant savage doctrine, eradicated. People will soon recognise that ISIL is not driven by religious conviction so much as megalomania and animalistic blood-lust. Their Jihadists are in it for the sex and excitement, the religious fervour is a sham.
Terror gives short-term advantage and a long-term heavy reckoning. ISIL’s days are numbered. The whole world has had enough of their evil.
I am an arachnophobe. That makes me slightly biased when it comes to spiders. But only slightly.
Everyone knows that spiders are evil. They not only look that way but they act it too. They plan, scheme and behave vindictively with maximum malice.
Yesterday we had a huge house spider. It scurried under the bath and hid. We could not coax it out and I knew it was planning.
I wrote my poem about it.
This morning there was a loud piercing scream from the bedroom. My good lady was in there getting dressed. She’d put on her top and felt the slightest touch on her shoulder. Instinctively she flicked at the irritation and found she had knocked the enormous spider off her shoulder on to the floor.
It had surreptitiously hidden under her clothes waiting its opportunity. When she got dressed it had gleefully held on in hopes of terrorising her.
Once its cunning plan had been interrupted (It had obviously lurked in her clothing ready to suddenly scurry on to her face and scare the wits out of her) it attempted to run off behind the cupboard.
My wife deployed gravity and mass effectively. She brought down her slipper on it.
We now wait in dread for the night. We know it has family (probably older siblings and parents) and, when it is inky black and we are sound asleep, they will seek revenge.