I took these first thing this morning. It’s good to get up to a new day with such a glorious welcome from nature.
Glimpses of Memories
Glimpses of Memories
A deep blue sky stretching to infinity,
Bright yellow sun scorching,
Bathing us in warmth and light.
A green world, alive with life,
Brsting with energy and dreams.
A flock of white doves effortlessly
Swooping and soaring across the heavens.
The liquid blue so deep it ripples.
Fluffy white clouds sailing imperceptibly through the ocean.
The rustle of insects industriously
Toiling in among the dry beige undergrowth.
Larger creatures crawl and sniff.
Green and red blood pumps.
I sit quietly among the colours of nature, of life
For one last glimpse.
Opher – 22.12.2024
I have such vivid memories of my idyllic childhood, sitting alone in the midst of a great flower-strewn meadow, the summer sun beating down, chewing on a stalk of hay, watching the life go on all around me, oblivious to my presence.
There was such an industry. Everywhere was so packed with life. I sat for hours fascinated by the beauty and wonder of what was taking place all around me. Magical times.
Wonder, Beauty, Awe and Love
Wonder, Beauty, Awe and Love
I saw wonder
In a spiral arm
Wonder In a cell
Wonder In a leaf
The gentle ocean’s swell.
I saw beauty
In a blossom
Beauty In a snake
Beauty In a spider’s web
The crystals of a flake.
I found awe
In infinity
Awe In nature’s scope
Awe In an atom’s spin
In the eternal ring of hope.
I found love
In my pet’s eyes
Love In my children’s smiles
Love In my sweetheart’s touch
Love’s never out of style.
Wonder, beauty, awe and love
Provide purpose – just enough!
Opher – 27.12.2024
I felt I needed a positive note. While a lo of my writing is dark my life is not. It is full of beauty, awe, love and wonder. I felt I needed to express that in order to provide some balance.
If I rail against the system I find myself stranded in it’s because I want it to change; I want to make it better.
Yes, I know, that is futile – but I believe in gestures. I believe in cycles. We are currently in a cycle of fear, hate and division. I hope that love, awe, hope, beauty and wonder will reassert itself.
We really don’t need greed.
Love always wins! Beauty is all around us! Wonder is what the universe runs on! Awe is how we should always feel!
That’s Not Nothing
That’s Not Nothing
Cuddles and hugs with a baby;
All the giggles and smiles.
Young love holding hands,
Kisses and eyes.
The myriad of living things;
The stars,
The sun,
Trees and rivers,
Jungles,
Plains and seas.
The days and weeks,
Months and years,
Birds, lizards, butterflies and bees,
Reds, greens
Blues and yellows.
Notes on the wind,
Caress of a warm breeze.
That’s not nothing.
That’s not nothing!
Opher – 10.12.2024
I could have written a thousand pages. Life, the universe and everything. For 4000 weeks we reside in this wonder. Then it’s gone.
It’s not nothing.
WHAAATTT??
WHAAATTT??
A drama,
A comedy,
A tragedy,
Full of bad actors
Who don’t know their parts,
Ad libbing
Their way
Through the roles.
A childhood,
A career,
A death,
While pretending to understand
Thinking it’s reality.
Opher – 11.12.2024
There are no rules.
There are no reasons.
We cannot create a narrative.
We are going nowhere.
It’s just a 4000 week holiday from eternity.
We call it life.
It has no purpose, no meaning; it just is.
Rainbows – a view from my window.
Our Breath
Our Breath
My breath,
Our breath,
The rustle of leaves.
My heartbeat,
Our heartbeat,
Susurrations on the breeze.
My dreams,
Our dreams,
Green splendour of nature.
My life,
Our life,
Defying all nomenclature.
Adrift on a cosmic island,
Wondrously
Alive
Myriads
Interconnected
Wonders.
Opher – 20.11.2024
Sometimes you simply have to stand aside and gasp. Here we are on this tiny rock spinning and spiralling through space at colossal speeds.
Once, just once, the chemicals came together.
Now we have this vast interconnected web of wonder, spawning consciousness, self-awareness and beauty.
So delicate, so unlikely, so marvellous.
Incredible. I am incredulous.
We are part of this. We are all one. My breath; our breath.
Wonder, Awe and Anger in Rhythm
I just picked this up to have a check. I read my own stuff from time to time to see if I still like it.
I liked it.
I stand by this intro:
Introduction
It is the tail-end of 2023. I am seventy four years old and have spent my life wondering, loving and protesting. I have discovered that life is a heady mixture of awe and pitfalls.
I live on a big hunk of rock hurtling through space at colossal speeds. I share my home with billions of wonders. Each organism a living miracle.
I stare out into the universe and my jaw drops.
I coexist with a mad bunch of apes whose brains have outgrown their ability to reason. Overcome by selfish lust for power and wealth, possessing a love of violence and inflicting pain, they are intent on destruction. Their ability to hate outstrips their ability to love. They invent banal religions faster that bacilli multiply so that they do not have to try to fathom the wonders of reality, of mind, space, infinity, the creation of the universe or how life began and evolved. Job done. God, Allah, Beelzebub, Apollo, Zeus, Vishna or Viracocha (or any of the other millions of gods we invented) did it. They have a plan and a purpose. No need to think or wonder. All will be revealed.
Their politics is just as insane.
So this year the Muslims try to kill Jews and Christians. The Jews and Christian kill Muslims. The believers in democracy kill the tyrants and the totalitarian despots kill the people.
2023 has seen wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria, Mali, Congo, Ethiopia, Colombia, Somalia, and Burkina Faso. Then we have the anarchic continuation of previous wars – Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Russia and China are arming. We have nuclear buttons all over the place.
The USA is being torn apart with populist imbeciles like Trump and Taylor-Green. A wave of populist ultra-right fascism, with the likes of Oban, Erdogan, Modi, Milei, Melononi and Le Penn, is engulfing the world.
We managed to rid ourselves of the narcissistic buffoon but we’ve still got the legacy of thirteen years of greed and corruption. Our public services are in tatters. The country is bankrupt. Brexit is the disaster we said it would be. While the architects of this devastation are swanning off with their millions – Cameron and Greenswill, Johnson and lunch speech clowning, May and public speaking, Mone and PPE, Osbourne and consultancies. The revolving door, backhanders and VIP lanes.
Inequality rules.
Racism and misogyny is evident everywhere.
Never has the stench been so bad.
Global warming gathers pace with floods, droughts, fires and storms.
More species are becoming extinct or endangered by the minute.
The world is in crisis with mass migration as millions flee war and extreme weather. Tribalism thrives and is exploited by populist despots. Outsiders are scapegoated. Civil wars ferment.
Meanwhile, the backdrop to this dark pantomime of gothic horror is a vast universe that is being revealed by Hubble and James Webb telescopes in all its unbelievable glory; the unfathomable mystery of quantum worlds and the perennial mystery of life itself.
Natural continues to inspire and amaze. Sunsets and seascapes are as majestic and overpowering as ever. All life is astoundingly beautiful.
My family continues to pick its way through the pitfalls of drugs, alcohol, violence and social division that underpins the society we live in – and this is close to the best there is.
At times I am overwhelmed by beauty and wonder; at other times I am incensed by the horrors and stupidity.
It certainly has provided me with sufficient stimulation to put together this, my thirtieth book of poetry.
Moved to put pen to paper, to pour out my inner feelings, the words have flowed in torrents.
I distil them into rhythms and let them free in a hopeless gesture.
Opher – 19.12.2023
Just Once
Just Once
Just once –
In an instance of amazing, unbelievable, impossibility,
Circumstances conspired.
Just once –
A snowball rolling downhill gathering pace,
Growing constantly.
Just once –
A planetary steamroller taking all before it,
Ever more complex.
Just once –
A cosmic vacuum cleaner sucking everything in,
Imbuing the lifeless with life.
Just once –
Culminating in a spectrum of great wonder
In which I am but a simple ray.
Opher – 4.10.2024
I remain constantly in awe of life, of the wonderful spectrum of organisms on this planet, their incredible forms and immense beauty. I am in awe of how it all came about. I remain in awe of the wonder of consciousness.
After a lifetime contemplating the spectacular inception of life and workings of the human mind I remain as much in awe as ever.
Religious people use words like miracles to describe what they cannot understand. They replace one inexplicable wonder with something even more incredible and impossible. That’s the human mind for you. Things we can’t explain become mystical and we create religions from them.
I remain suspended in awe and wonder.
Life is my religion. I worship it. A sunset is my religion. I soak it in. Answers can blow in a wind of wonder. There are no answers; just wonder.
All life is sacred. All nature wondrous. Who needs more? I am part of something splendid, a small ray in a vast lightshow.
The Spice of Life
The Spice of Life
The spice of life:
It’s hot.
The herbs
The vitamins
Produce a nutritious meal;
A balanced diet
Possessing the full spectrum
Of flavours,
To be consumed with delight.
The feast,
The banquet,
A smorgasbord
From which to choose
A diet of distinction!
Opher – 19.9.2024
I guess we select the various ingredients from the range available. Everything is spread out before us. The variety is spectacular. We can put together the most amazing, healthy meals, or pile our plates with rubbish. How we put the ingredients together is up to us.
The world is our banquet.
Our lives are our choices.