Poetry – Reality is Death

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!

Poetry – Missiles and Bombs

Missiles and Bombs

Missiles and bombs

                Falling like rain

Soaking the cities           

                Dissolving to dust.

Soldiers and death

                Filling the graves.

Emptying homes

                Mocking the just.

Escalating.

                Upping the ante.

No end in sight.

Destruction

And terror

An endless fight.

Saving face??

                No way out!

Existential threat?

                Brutal lout.

Opher – 23.3.2022

The Ukraine war is not going the way Putin had hoped. The liberator from the Nazi regime finds himself a fascist invader and figure of hate.

What was going to be a simple take-over has proved to be anything but. Instead of an incisive thrust Russia is in an existential crisis.

Nothing has gone to plan.

Death and destruction. We’re into a long war of contrition.

Putin is the rat trapped in the corner.

Poetry – History Repeats

History Repeats

History repeats.

Lessons are never learned.

Fascists arrogantly strut.

Our cities burn.

The racist chants

Echo down the streets.

Frightened people keep quiet,

Civilisation retreats.

Politicians stir,

Seeking power.

Behind locked doors

Poor people cower.

The tribal game

Is played out again.

Every single person

Feels the pain.

Opher – 27.7.2020

When will we ever learn?? The same authoritarian garbage tinged with xenophobia and racist. It is always the same simplistic answers; the aggression; the fear; the anger; the wish to dominate and control; the wish to apply force; the scapegoating, superiority and arrogance.

We are faced with the rise of the right-wing with their racial purity and guns. Strutting with their violence, intolerance and aggression.

Fascism rises up and creates war. It has to be crushed back down.

Oh for an education system that creates empathy and compassion.

That would put an end to fascism. Much better than guns and bombs.

Fascism is a disease.

Poetry – The Brigands

The Brigands

The brigands charged down the hill,

Swords raised,

With chilling battle cries,

Thundering hooves.

Callously and gleefully they butchered men, women and children,

Set fire to huts,

Raped, tortured and looted.

But those were the days of long ago.

Nothing changes.

Except, now they use drones

And ‘peace keepers’.

Opher – 12.7.2020

Once upon a time we built walls around our cities and had fortified castles; we raised armies and kept constant watch.

What a way to spend your life – in fear of brigands.

They’d sweep down with their armies, killing, torturing, looting and raping.

Nowadays we’re much more sophisticated. We do it from afar.

Poetry – Playing games

Playing games

Faded Empires,

Playing games

With millions of pawns.

Complex machinations

For power and wealth

In an incandescent storm.

Intrigue, threats and death,

Brinkmanship

Arrogance and scorn.

Played out across the globe,

Devoid of compassion

Greed, selfishness, care-worn.

Unseen puppet masters

Guide us through

Creating poverty and war

With paid brawn.

Inbuilt superiority,

Illusions of grandeur,

All in-born.

They play their power games

Of self-importance –

The devil’s spawn!

Opher – 13.6.2020

There is a big global game being played by powerful privileged people.

We are pawns.

Huge wealth is deployed.

They gamble with the future.

They use poverty and war as tools.

They exploit, cheat and control.

It is mega politics – beyond the politics of mere nations.

Poetry – Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

Planting bombs,

Planning wars,

Inciting hatred,

All part of the plan.

Sewing division,

Using inequality,

For the sole gain

Of the elitist clan.

Using religion,

Elections and politics,

For the benefit

Of this selfish man.

It is time

We put a stop

To this reign of terror

Spread through this human span.

Opher 13.6.2020

If we are intelligent creatures we should be able to find a way to live on this planet together, without fear, for mutual benefit. We should be able to coexist with all the other forms of life without displacing them, making them extinct.

If we were truly intelligent I think we’d find a way to banish poverty and create harmony.

If we were intelligent.

Poetry – Echoes of History

Echoes of History

Echoes of history

                Louder every day,

Leaving hungry children

                                                Shivering in the dark.

Civilisation crumbles

                Into choking dust;

                                Houses into rubble.

                                                Missiles hit their mark.

Security an illusion

                While tyrants rule.

                                Ruining the future;

                                                Leaving choices stark.

Opher – 15.3.2021

It is incredibly disturbing to see Putin directing the destruction of a country.

Why do we do it?

We live in sophisticated cities with people working and playing, worrying about fashion and whether they can afford a better house or a new car. Every normal. Lives filled with trivia – the school run, the cinema, a trip out, planning holidays, shopping and cooking. Ordinary.

We live in countries where there are debates as to whether we can afford to repair potholes inroads or replace cladding on skyscrapers, to pay teachers and nurses a living wage, yet we can but multimillion pound tanks, missiles and aircraft.

On the whim of a despot we can turn whole cities into piles of rubble.

How many trillions wasted?

If a building collapses, trapping hundreds, it is a global catastrophe. Yet we can callously deliberately kill hundreds of thousands of women and children.

Civilisation is just a short holiday from carnage. Slaughter and destruction is the norm.

We are nasty vicious little apes who pretend.

We are witnessing the reality of our nature. Humans are not very nice.

Russia vicious in its weakness!!

Riddell sums it up in a cartoon. Russia, with its army is disarray is floundering. China watches on and the Ukraine is turned to rubble. What a disaster on all fronts. What a fool Putin was.

The Corona Diaries – Day 754

It was bright and sunny and quite a lot warmer in Yorkshire today. I didn’t go for a walk as I had a writing group. So good to meet up with friends and share our writing. Some great stuff.

Back home I’ve been playing some Byrds and finished reading my Jasper Fforde book. Really enjoyed it. Am wondering what to read next!! Might try a couple of friends’ books. I’ve got two ready.

Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, our clown is cosying up to another unpleasant dictator who likes beheading people because they are gay. Seems that we need the oil and gas because cosying up to the previous dictator is no longer considered kosher.

Fortunately, our clown was not involved in the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe or she’d still be in there! If there is publicity to be made out of it they can afford to come up with £400,000,000. But when it’s giving money to those in need whose kids are starving or fair pay for teachers and nurses that’s another story. That money is needed for tax cuts for the wealthy.

I don’t know what is going to happen with the huge cost of living crisis that is overwhelming us. It’s a tsunami of increases. Rents have shot up. House prices have shot up. Petrol is now over £1.60 a litre. Gas and Electricity has tripled in price. Food is shooting up in price. All goods are becoming more expensive. On top of that the Tories are raising taxes and raising National Insurance. How on earth can people manage? For millions it is not going to be a choice of heating or eating. They are going to have the gas off and still starve.

The growth industry is food banks!

The question is why?

Brexit is costing us £37 billion a year and have put food and goods prices up due to a lack of HGV drivers. Then we have the loss of cheap Eastern European workers in shops, care homes, drivers, builders and pickers. The impact has been higher prices and shortages.

The government has hidden the cost of Brexit under the Covid crisis. Their mismanagement of the Covid crisis meant that they have squandered untold tens of billions on useless PPE, useless T&T, and bungs to their chums. How many billions of silly loans to crooks are they writing off?

They are looking to hide the Covid ineptitude behind a cost of living crisis that they are blaming on global problems. Our energy is going up 50% in April yet in France it’s going up 4%.

The oil companies are making tens of billions of extra profit (while pump prices are exorbitantly high) but the government refuses to take a windfall tax to help out the needy.

They are now looking to hide up the cost of living crisis (of their own making) behind the Ukraine war.

It’s all lies, smoke and mirrors. They are lying to us and looking to shove all their ineptitude, corruption and sleaze under the carpet.

It is very clear what their aims are. They are robbing from the poor – those on benefits and in the public services – in order to give to the poor. The top 5% have never had it so good. They’ve been making a fortune out of Brexit and Covid (and the cost of living crisis and the war). They are a bunch of profiteers busy stuffing their ill-gotten gains in the Cayman Islands.

I’ve got a good solution!! Raise the tax on the stupidly-rich, block off the tax loopholes and put a windfall tax on all of those industries who have made silly money out of Brexit, Covid, Energy and War. Of course, they won’t do that. People like Rishi Sunak are the stupidly rich. They want those tax loopholes for themselves. Those Tory MPs working on their second jobs, earning millions (like Rees-Mogg and Geoffrey Cox). The top 5% are the very people they were put into parliament to represent. They’d rather push the poor into starvation.

So, in Ukraine the Russian military is still totally bogged down, suffering horrendous casualties and losses of planes and tanks. They have been so poor at logistics that their tanks are being abandoned because they’re running out of fuel. They still haven’t managed to take a single city, had another general killed today and are losing this war. They have suffered 13,500 casualties and Putin is having to bring in mercenaries from Chechnia and Syria to bolster his depleted forces. This is meant to be a superpower!! What a joke. We’ll probably find their nukes are made of plastic!!

Perhaps they will have to negotiate for peace??

As the sanctions bite Russia is in a mess. Could be the end for Putin!!

All this mess is our fault though. The West went back on promises and moved NATO into those eastern countries putting missiles and planes close to Russia. Then when Russia invaded Georgia we did nothing. When they invaded Crimea we did nothing. When they invaded the two Ukrainian states we did nothing. The message to Putin was that the West would simply sit back and allow him to take Ukraine.

Putin underestimated the Western response. He no longer had Trump in the USA (who might have joined his mate in invading Ukraine). He’d bought Brexit and got Johnson in power. He thought the EU was weakened and we are led by a clown; he could do what he wanted.

He thought sanctions would be mild and last a few weeks. He must be reeling now and wondering what hit him. It’s almost as if the West has lured him in for a sucker punch.

Mind you, Ukraine is not the nice country it’s made out to be. It’s full of far-right groups and racism. There are some very unpleasant elements!

Over here in Coronaland with a pandemic that no longer exists Johnson must be getting worried. The virus is surging. We’ve shot up to 93,576 cases with 153 deaths. Hospital admissions shot up by a third this week.

Of course, our useless clown is doing his best. He’s keeping out the way and not saying anything. He’s removing testing so we can only guess at the real numbers, he’s disbanded the science group and he’s planning to stop reporting on the virus.

He’s hoping it will magically go away!!

Operation ‘Save The Big Dog’ is in full swing. All the country’s woes are due to other global issues (or Corbyn), every lie, lawbreaking incident or act of ineptitude is covered up. The media and BBC are under control. The rich are getting richer and the poor are too stupid to see what’s going on. All’s well!!

Stay safe!!!

Solidarity with the Traumatised people of Ukraine.

War is obscene. All who it touches are traumatised.

Putin is a paranoid megalomaniac.

I am so grateful to have spent my whole life safe and away from the monstrosities that take place around the world as the megalos and fanatics play our their brutal games.