Showing results by author "Opher Goodwin" in All Categories

A voyage to the edge of the universe. The evolution of mankind into god-like super-beings. The explosion of the sun into a supernova. It's all happening in this historic artefact from the late-sixties/seventies. This is a Sci-fi novel, my very first Sci-fi novel, written in 1973-75 - typed on an old second-hand Remington typewriter. I've dusted it off so that I can reacquaint myself with an old friend - the person I used to be. It is a book of its time.

The sixties raged. I was young, crazy, full of hormones and wanting to snatch life by the balls. There was a life out there for the grabbing and it had to be wrestled into submission. There was a society full of boring amoral crap and a life to be had in the face of the boring, comforting vision of slow death on offer. Rock music vented all that passion. This book is a memoir of a life spent immersed in Rock Music. I was born in 1949 and so lived through the whole gamut of Rock. Rock music formed the background to momentous world events – the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Iraq war, ...

A collection of poems written in 2020 about politics, Trump, Black Lives Matter and America.

The Synod The Synod is a group of the world’s top politicians who received their orders from ‘upstairs’ – a shady group of billionaires who pull the strings. There is concern that the huge population is out of control. It is no longer economically viable. The problems now exceed the profits. It is time to take drastic action. The Scientist Science is pure. Working with the genome is expanding knowledge. The ethics can be left to the politicians to worry about. Mickel’s Syndrome Mikel’s Syndrome is a rare genetic disorder of partial trisomy creating a slight difference in ...

This is the ultimate sixties book – an ‘On the Road’ for the British Underground with all its sex, drugs, dreams and music; those times of crazy people high on life and mad for experience – when anything was possible. It captures that idealistic naïve impossibility permeated with vitality and careering love and dreams, the wild rush for adventure without a thought for the future because it was going to last forever. - Seemingly forever changes! It spans continents as it trips its way through time, space and mind in a mad rush to discover life and experience or die trying. Now was ...

This is a peek into various corners of my attic. The memories are piled up in heaps. Have a rummage through.

Guns, Rhymes, Elephants and Dreams is my 11th book of poems. My poems are the distillations of the thoughts, ideas and dreams that come into my head. They are inspired by the world around me - the good, bad and detestable.I write to make the world better.

This is my second anthology of poems. I do not claim to be a poet. I have no pretensions in that direction. I just like writing. Sometimes ideas and feelings come out as what I describe as poems and sometimes they come out as my version of novels. For me it is all about communication and playing with words. Words are slippery things, like eels. Their meanings are nuanced. When you put them together they are tinged with other sheen. They wriggle into other forms. A word is amazing. It is a symbol, sometimes for a very tenuous concept, that we are able to use to touch each other with. We ...

WARNING – Sexually Explicit and Religiously Dangerous! This book is a sexually explicit expose of religion. If you are easily offended by sex or hold strong religious views I suggest you read no further. Ginny was a young party girl with a close group of friends. Life was good. She had a job she enjoyed and her world was fun. There was the round of parties, clubs, dancing, drugs and sex that provided the spice. Apart from one or two ‘aggravations’ such as getting herself prosecuted for shoplifting life was pretty sorted. Then came the voices and life would never be the same. She had ...

I have always been intrigued by the fantasy of life, the mystery of the universe, the gross squalid nature of politics, the destruction of nature and the beauty of love. They are the subjects of my poems.This is my fourteenth volume of poems. The stream is continuous.

Topical Poetry reflecting the age we live in - themes of anti-war, covid, subversion, love, hate, politics and social comment. Trump and Johnson come in for some heavy treatment.

This is the ultimate sixties book – set in the British Underground with all its sex, drugs, dreams and music; those times of crazy people high on life and mad for experience – when anything was possible. It captures that idealistic naïve impossibility permeated with vitality and careering love and dreams, the wild rush for adventure without a thought for the future because the trip was all there was and it was going to last forever. - Seemingly, as Love said: forever changes! The story spans continents as it trips its way through time, space and mind, in a mad rush to discover life and...

Commentaries on life, from a planet ruled by psychopaths and sociopaths, in a world of inequality, war, poverty and misery, created by us. Commentaries on a planet of awesome beauty in a universe of wonder. Written post Brexit and Trump, in the midst of a pandemic, in a country governed by extremist nationalists led by a clown - in a world on the brink of environmental catastrophe.

The world waits, lungs paralysed, minds frozen, cocooned in hope, with expectations so enormous people cannot even imagine the scale of their dreams. Everything hangs suspended. They want a Messiah, a universal panacea, an end to this mess we have created. They have tried democracy. They have tried capitalism. They have tried populism. They now want poetry! They want to breathe again, to think, love, share and find spiritual enlightenment. Opher’s new volume may well be the answer!

Here we are in 2023. There is so much going on. We have the Tory Party in complete meltdown over their lies, corruption, sleaze and incompetence. We’ve a mean old Trump either looking into the abyss of prison or an improbable come-back. We’ve a terrible war in Ukraine that’s threatening to either turn nuclear or cause the demise of Russia. We’ve the spectre of Xi looking on and North Korea has gone relatively quiet. Top that off with the cost of living, poverty and a world that is heating up and you can see that there are more than enough issues for me to get my teeth into. As the ...

This tells the story of how Opher Goodwin was selected by aliens to save the world. The visitors from afar had scoured the universe in search of life and intelligence. They found it on a planet called Earth, where, unfortunately, the dominant life form was trying it’s best to wipe itself – and everything else – out. The aliens set about selecting a saviour and installing him as Global President. They chose the unlikely hero Opher Goodwin. Opher and his friends from the pub had all of the immense problems of the world on their shoulders plus the vicious opposition of the existing ...

Poetry of anger, fury and passion

This is the story of a fabulous voyage to South America in 2016 on a two hulled icebreaker called the Marco Polo. Amusing tales, beauty, observations, social asides, photography, politics and the wonders of nature - it is all there…. And more. Rio De Janeiro, Buenos Aires, The Falkland Islands, the magic of Magellan’s Strait plus a dozen more wondrous destinations. The day of the albatrosses, the boobies, petrels, penguins, skuas and frigate birds; the sea-lions and the whales - all the ingredients of a fabulous voyage.

More anecdotes from the sixties, childhood, college, sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. In the mix are beliefs, diatribes and the usual doses of Roy Harper, Jimi Hendrix, Rock Music and the Blues. There are tales of strange happenings, mechanical prowess, my family and disasters. If you enjoyed volume one then this is more of the same. This is Opher revealed, up close and personal.

This is my seventh book of poetry. Poetry for me is a vehicle to explore and distil my thoughts, attitudes and feelings. These books are not by any means confined to my poems. Each poem is combined with a section of prose. It is intended to illustrate the issues and expose my inner thoughts. The poems included cover a range of subject matter. They range through nature, love, war, religion and social comment. They express my feelings of anger, despair, tenderness as well as love and war. Life is a wonder. A life unexamined is a life unlived. To be involved is to be alive. As I sit here in my...