Wednesday, 23 July 2025

An Ill-Wind

























Image generated by Chatgpt



An Ill-Wind

While floating along on currents of thought,
My mind moves upward and beyond into the past
To where they said it all began with a Big Bang.
Straining my eyes I see what shouldn’t be seen:
Galaxies and worlds fully formed and whole
Where wondering wandering minds reach out to me!
Before I can ask how and why this can be,
I feel myself lifted aloft by a gust of wind
And carried along long ley lines of life.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day
That sears the eyes and flails the skin,
That tastes of copper and stinks of decay.
Behind, a behemoth gradually gains ground
In the guise of a monstrous boiling roiling cloud
Black and purple lit within by bolts of orange
Along with red flashes and sheets of outrage.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day!
Like a gnat caught in forces beyond its control
I’m swept through filaments of time and space
And buffeted by cause and effect ripples and waves
As the wind cries havoc with hyper-sonic screams
Turning cities to rubble, lives to ruin and dashing dreams.
The wind then lets slip autonomous dog drones of war;
A humming, buzzing, hovering inhuman horror
Raining terror and death and murdering moral law.
I search for answers that might be blowin’ in the wind
Only to see that cloud enshroud the bodies of the dead.
Above scattered wailing cries of “enough!” and “no more!”
The wind blares leaders’ lies for the need to wage war.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day,
But will it ever recall all that’s lost along the way?
Hot gusts of outrage and indignation
Tempered by breezes of justification
And the turbulence of distraction
Gives us the wind’s final determination.
Looking down I watch the aimless walking dead
Google Map their way through rubble and ruin
While their leaders over head ride the jet stream
On their way to kneel before would-be emperors
To pay them obeisance and perform proskynesis,
For they know which way the wind is blowing.
Unaware of the coming cloud that wind brings,
Back they fly with butterfly bills fluttering in the wind,
To pay for bigger and better ways to kill and maim
While the walking dead scratch for ways to live.
To them the wind whispers, “march onward unto war.”
And lies about what they’ll be fighting for.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day,
Buffeting me with hot updraughts and air currents
Fed by wild fire flames fanned by the force of the wind;
A devil’s scorched earth act to starve out all hope.
Is that the wind or the sound of screaming jets?
Or the walking dead pleading “No more, no more?”
But the wind merely blows mercy back into their faces
While their socials busily scoop up views and likes,
Subscribers and followers and gathers comments
To occupy their thoughts for only a few moments.
All the while the cloud looms larger in the wind’s wake;
The wind that cleaves and carves chasms and canyons
Through binary minds divided by thoughts and opinions
On what’s black and white, right and wrong, true and false,
Real and fake, good and bad, and innocence and guilt.
I strain to hear the walking dead shout across the divide
At one another above the wind’s roar as it casts aside
Bridges built of reason, empathy and compassion.
As I wave warnings at those below to show I’m real,
I start to shimmer and undulate in the wind’s grip,
But they just look up and through me as if I’m not there;
No flicker of acknowledgement that I even exist
And this from living ghosts – the walking dead
Who don’t yet know where they have been led
By this ill-wind that blows on this day.
Before I can ask how and why this can be
I feel my atoms being rent and dispersed by the wind.
All I’m aware of is the blackness within the cloud
Shot through with strobe-like flashes of violence.
It has finally come in the wake of the wind
And within I feel nothing but deep hollow grief
As water coalesces around each particle of my being:
A multitude of raindrops that fall and drench the earth
In a flood that soon swamps bystanders who did nothing,
Said nothing and stood by while the wind blew fiercely
In a genocidal blast of murderous cleansing criminality.
The raindrops now become tears that form a deluge
To wash human sin away from the face of the earth
So that none can ever again see what shouldn’t be seen
With only the wind knowing how and why it could have been.



©Chris Christopoulos 2025




[I have a few poems sprinkled throughout this blog in various posts often inspired by the films that are featured. You’ll also find a few in my Sci-Fi Film Fiesta The Lost Last Volume 12“Speculations & Ruminations,” Part 3: Poetic Ponderings.]





Saturday, 12 July 2025

Children of the Damned (1964)

 

A Cold War sequel of sorts with an anti-war message that doesn’t quite attain the kind of eerie atmosphere of its predecessor.


Directed by Anton M. Leader
Written by John Briley
Produced by Ben Arbeid
Cinematography: David Boulton
Edited by Ernest Walter
Music by Ron Goodwin
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 90 minutes
Box office: $1,000,000 (US/ Canada)


Cast

Ian Hendry as Col. Tom Lewellyn
Alan Badel as Dr. David Neville
Barbara Ferris as Susan Eliot
Alfred Burke as Colin Webster
Sheila Allen as Diana Looran
Ralph Michael as Defence Minister
Patrick Wymark as Commander
Martin Miller as Professor Gruber
Harold Goldblatt as Harib
Patrick White as Mr. Davidson
André Mikhelson as Russian official
Bessie Love as Mrs. Robbins, Mark's grandmother
Alan MacNaughtan as British Army officer (uncredited)
Clive Powell as Paul
Roberta Rex as Nina
Mahdu Mathen as Rashid
Yoke-Moon Lee as Mi Ling
Gerald Delsol as Ago
Frank Summerscale as Mark



Trailer



History Hearsay podcast (transcript)

Daniel: Hi there and welcome once again to the History Hearsay podcast. The podcast that deals with historical fact, rumor along with a touch of myth and conspiracy theory. I’m your host, Daniel Farnsworth and joining me as usual is my erstwhile history hound and co-host, Dilbert Dunlevy.

Dilbert: Hi folks. So Dan old buddy, tell the folks what we’ll be delving into for this episode.

Daniel: Dill, no doubt you and the listeners out there will remember a previous episode we did about three years ago on the BBC’s History's Mysteries – Fact & Fiction TV program hosted by Denis Vaughan which investigated the so-called “Midwich Time-out Incident” that supposedly occurred in 1960.

Dilbert: Oh man! I do remember. That really freaked me out. Hey, didn’t the folks of that English village of …….aaahhh...Midwich keel over unconscious one day for several hours for what seemed to be no reason?

Daniel: Yes Dill. In fact, anyone who entered the village also apparently succumbed in the same manner. Just as mysteriously, after a few hours the villagers suddenly regained consciousness, and appeared to be unaffected. Not only that, but the military established a cordon around Midwich along with the establishment of a five-mile exclusion zone around the village for all aircraft.

Dilbert: Dude, I still have nightmares about the reports of those creepy kids with the blonde hair, weird eyes and strange powers, not to mention links to….aliens, man!

Daniel: For those who are interested in that event, please revisit episode 64 or go to the link on our History Hearsay blog which has a post on the BBC program’s coverage of the 1960 “Midwich Time-out Incident.”

This leads us to today’s historical anomaly which we have managed to piece together from testimony from sources within the Ministry of Defense who wish to remain anonymous, documents secretly obtained from MI6 / Special Intelligence Service and files from government-affiliated scientific agencies, along with the findings of a closed-door unofficial inquiry held 60 years ago formed to investigate the matter. The information derived from these sources which will be available on our blog shortly, will help to form our expose of the 1964 historical sequel to the “Midwich Time-out Incident” which we call the “Southwark Church Siege Incident.”

Dilbert: So, Dan, how’s we gonna' approach this?

Daniel: Well, Dill, We’ll take our listeners through the following main elements of this incredible incident:
  1. In England, a child possessing an astonishing level of intelligence is discovered.
  2. The investigation as to how this young boy came to possess such extraordinary intelligence and mental abilities.
  3. The discovery of several more children around the world who also possessed the same abilities as the English boy and together shared a collective consciousness along with dangerous psychic powers.
  4. The military’s attempt to study and experiment on the children.
  5. The children’s escape from their embassies and take over of a small church.
  6. The army’s besieging of the church and its intent on eradicating the perceived menace.
  7. The manner in which the stand off was resolved.
  8. Implications.
Dill, why don’t you start us off with what you managed to dig up concerning the unusual young boy and the investigation surrounding him and his strange abilities?

Read on for more....