Poetry – Fire in my Head

Posted on by Opher

Fire in my Head

There’s a fire in my head

That flows through my arteries

Through my fingers

Into the words on this page.

It can make you jump

Or make you sing

Or turn your thoughts

To rage.

For there are those

Who would stymie fun

And control

Your every thought.

They strive to instil

Their doctrine

Into everything

That is taught.

That fire burns

And rages

That they should all

Be opposed.

For if we do not

Have the right

To be free

Nothing can be supposed.

Opher – 13.11.2019

Every time I read about injustice or intolerance it fills me with a rage. For there are those who would tyrannise, exploit or destroy – and they need opposing.

I’m glad I’ve got a fire in my head.

Poetry – No War has ever been won

Posted on by Opher

No War has ever been won

No war has ever been won.

We always count the casualties.

It always resounds down the centuries.

No war can ever be won.

We all lose when we start.

The billions we spend on guns

Is taken from a range of funds.

No war is ever won.

When we turn to war

We traumatise so many.

Winners? There are not any.

You can never win a war.

No war has ever been won.

We count the cost in hate;

Minds broken on winds of fate.

For no war can ever be won.

When that is what we choose

We all lose.

Opher 23.10.2019

Every war resonates down the centuries – hatreds are stoked for centuries. We’re still fighting the First World War, the Battle of the Boyne and all the rest.

They are never forgotten.

The winners are scarred. The losers are scarred.

We are all the poorer. The traumatised, with their PTSD, clog up our streets, our hospitals and our mental homes. The anger, violence and hatred resound through our communities.

Nobody ever wins a war.

Poetry – More plumes of smoke

Posted on by Opher

More plumes of smoke

More plumes of smoke.

More blasts of high explosives

And shattering of lives.

More rubble,

More skeletons of cities

And imploded minds.

More colossal expenditure

Given to destruction.

More generations of hate

And ruins of lives.

More opportunities

For investors

To make a killing.

More opportunities

For some

To gain power.

More opportunities

For hawks

To impose death on innocents.

More, more, more

It is always more.

It is never-ending,

Testosterone driven.

A macho power struggle.

14.10.2019

Seems utter madness to spend so much of our energy, ingenuity, time, resources and effort planning destruction in an endless burst of dick-waving.

Poetry – Not For Me

Posted on by Opher

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.

Poetry – Futility of War

Posted on by Opher

Futility of War

My grandfather fought in the trenches

With the gas, whizzbangs and machinegun rattle.

My father fought in the hills of Italy

With howitzers, tanks and the roar of battle.

Neither would talk of what they’d seen

Of friends mown down like cattle.

They’d both come to realise

That tales of bravery were mere tittle tattle.

The reality was luck

Nothing to do with valour at all.

I was the lucky one

I never had to fight

For Queen or country

Or see our cities set alight.

I never had to question

If this war was wrong or right.

I’ve spent my life in peace

And never had to fight.

For seventy four years that peace has held

The longest time in history.

But do we have to question why?

For it isn’t any mystery?

The United Nations

And the European Union

Have brought nations together,

Not in conflict, but communion.

Far better to talk and trade

In complex collaboration

Rather than to bomb and blast

And remain in isolation.

Opher – 1.10.2019.

Isn’t it obvious that it is better to have partnership and collaboration rather than conflict? Isn’t it obvious that it is better to trade and talk rather than quarrel and fight?

I think so.

Poetry – Death of the Innocents

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Death of the Innocents

I screamed in the basement

As the bombs rained down.

Seven years of age

When buried in the ground.

I scurried down the road

As the bullets flew.

A soldier took aim

So I never grew.

They blow women and children

To shreds and to gore

So they can make profit

From destruction and war.

They’re selling missiles to tyrants

And power-mad fanatics.

Justifying the sale

With mental acrobatics.

They are madmen and worse

Who are running the world;

Creating a rampage

That can never be quelled.

It’s all fear and terror

In the hearts of the ravaged,

From cruelty and sadism

In the hearts of the savage.

We humans are engaged

With a great killing spree

And won’t be satisfied

Til the world’s on its knees!

Opher – 8.7.2019

Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everywhere you look you see the hardness of eyes, the fanaticism and the barbarity of humans.

It’s time we put a stop to this massacre of the innocents!

Poetry – It counts for nothing

Posted on by Opher

It counts for nothing

Bravery and strength count for nothing

Against the blast of missiles.

Skill does not protect against

Jagged shrapnel or speeding bullet.

Death is dispensed from distance

Dispassionately,

From judgements made on screens,

Emanating from the decisions of politicians.

Warfare is now a product of machines

With nobody distant from the front line.

War is in your front room.

A game of power.

Opher – 26.6.2019

Every night I watch the scenes of shattered cities. We build them up and we knock them down. They could be in Syria, Yemen or Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria or Libya. They all look the same – piles of rubble. The images are similar – with bloody traumatised children being pulled from rubble, people desperately digging for their buried loved ones, limbs lost, heads bandaged and always that same bewildered look in empty eyes.

As drones patrol the skies and administer payloads of fury.

Soldier’s training counts for little in the mayhem of modern battle. It’s all luck.

Being a civilian provides no immunity.

As politicians vie to gain advantage and push the pieces on the board. Starvation, disease, terror or bombs – the method is immaterial.

Poetry – What went wrong?

Posted on by Opher

What went wrong?

Into the churning waves stained with blood,

To plunge over bodies towards shards of metal

And explosions that threaten to rip and tear.

Young men, boys,

Terrified

Yet determined, resolute

And filled with ardour.

They died to set the world free.

So what were they fighting for –

These brave young men?

For a new world of greater equality?

For a world of freedom, fairness and tolerance?

For the end of fascism and fear?

For an end to tyranny and obsequiousness?

For a brighter future in which we all could prosper?

What went wrong?

Opher – 7.6.2019

Watching the D-Day landings and listening to the survivors speak was a moving experience. To this day, seventy five years on, their minds were still broken by the horrors that they’d witnessed and the acts they’d carried out.

War is a horrendous thing that badly damages the minds of all who are exposed to its violence.

But what filled me with anger was to think of what those young boys were so heroically going into that cauldron of fury for. When the front of their landing craft went down they surged forward shoulder deep into those waves weighed down with rifles and equipment, over the bodies of their dead and dying comrades, into a hail of machine gun bullets and explosions. Their bravery was not in doubt. But what of their dreams and wishes? What were they fighting for?

Was it so that fascists could march again on our streets? Or that we could have our youth channelled into zero hours contracts so that the wealthy could scoop in more loot? Was it so racists and nationalists and populist billionaires, like Trump, Farage and Tommy Robinson could spread their pernicious lies?

Is this the future that they were dying for?

Leixões – Art, statues and the fortress!

Posted on by Opher

I’m always moved by the way that the past is always represented by violence, power and control – fortresses, castles, palaces and churches.

Human being haven’t changed much – violence, wealth and power dominate.

Poetry – Robber Barons

Posted on by Opher

Robber Barons

Robber Barons down the years

With no compassion in their hearts

Practice their cruel brutality

With gleeful brazen treachery.

With arrogance sufficient to sink a ship

They strut and preen and snarl

Stab, torture

And laugh,

Stamping down the bewildered

With delight.

They rode amid the blood and guts

Roaring, slashing, trampling

With gay abandon

To steal the fruits of other’s labors

And love it all the more

For the agony

They create.

Once with chainmail and sword

They roared.

Now armed with a suit and pen,

Sweet words

And reassurance.

Their cold eyes

Belie the intrinsic pleasure

As they strip you naked

And leave you for dead.

Shaking your hand with a smile

As they grip you by the throat

And never relax the vice-like grip

Upon your balls.

Opher 23.2.2018

There are a psychotic, sociopathic group of men, mainly men, who have operated down the centuries to rampage and destroy, rape, torture and strip bare. Their callous viciousness attracts like-twisted monsters who go along for the ride. They plunder all they can and enjoy the anguish and destruction they leave in their wake.

In a harsh environment people put their energies into creating harmony and clawing a living out of the ground. They slowly build up and create comfort for their family, storing up resources over the decades, only to find all their toil undone. 

In a matter of minutes the hordes rampaged through ravishing, burning, plundering and laying waste. Rape and torture is their currency. Havoc is their joy. For it is easier to rip the goods of others from their hands than to produce it oneself.

When they rode off through the smoke the survivors gathered to survey the carnage, bury the dead and attempt to rebuild their lives.

These robber barons ruled the land, built the castles and became the law. They stole all they could, enclosed it, claimed it and held it by force.

They are still there. Their land is still walled off. The newbies wear they suits and flash their perfect smiles as they strip you of your life.

They’ve always enjoyed the agony. One man’s freedom is another man’s terror.