Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
In sleep your chest
exhales, heaving
So calm at rest
full in breathing
Rising, falling
without compel
Captivating
like peaceful swell
Safe at anchor
in rise, in fall
Absent rancor
in port of call
+)
swell = large, calm (non breaking) waves, following a gale or storm
A splendiferous mallard
flew up from nearby Ballard
Swam around Green Lake
but for goodness sake:
How does this make a ballad?
Money shuffling arcane
all for power & gain:
Even when usurious the result
of their speculations financial
The Rich will find little time to exult
as their entitlement substantial
While you’re not having enough to eat
they are densely hard of hearing
they are just so happily effete
How quaintly sweet & endearing!
Still hoping get things changed?
Aren’t you callow, deranged:
As no One Percenter Nonsuch
does ever stoop to exploit
merely endowed with golden touch
while responsibly adroit!
Petitioning the Power Elite?
How naive & hopelessly odd
as they shall never concede a tweet
They own media, gold & God
Groveling at feet of the greedy
likewise shall never ever work
The Rich are the ones feeling needy
such charming, disarming a quirk!
In plush executive suites
tinny hearts with profits flutter
while you’re walking those mean streets
They got Congress, you got gutter
Of course if you cannot take the heat
get up & off the side walk grate
and sleep instead on the bus backseat
Or get a climate controlled crate
For most of us are at best a statistic
in this world Casino Capitalistic
+)
God = Goldman Sach’s CEO reminds us they’re “doing God’s work”:
http://www.businessinsider.com/lloyd-blankfein-says-he-is-doing-gods-work-2009-11
Show us all we can grab
how to get our way
as we prefer to nab
not give or allay!
Thus abet
rather than care
just forget
what’s like to share
Have now learned to manage
(spurred on by own greed)
taking full advantage
of those in dire need
Indulgent we’re beaming
finest wines we swill
lounged amidst stuff gleaming
huge thick steaks we grill
But aboard in yachting delight
cruising in the starlit night
cradled in self-absorbed birthright
oughtn’t our collars feel bit tight?
+)
-collars feel bit tight = here: feeling a strain of anxiety about whether we’re steering a compassionate course on life’s ocean
Our quick, impatient words
flapping in ad lib
like flocks of ‘take off’ birds
swift, screeching & glib
Our phrases cheerfully poured
over facts, rationale
‘cleverness points’ to be scored
regardless of morale
‘Rolling off tongue’ phrases
sink without a trace
scattered in odd places
as bystanders brace
While endless subjects of banality
keep splashing amongst the plurality
Multitudes eagerly eat it
though there can be no fakin’
While some try make it appear fit
here’s the truth about bacon:
Poor hogs maligned
horribly treated
tightly confined
callously slaughtered
Billions gallons of feces piling
bucolic surroundings defiling
In actuality
it’s raw brutality
leering lethality
lacking morality
Your breakfast’s ‘burnt pork’ fuel
(sizzling fat thought tasty)
was ‘raised’ in manner cruel
Conscience clear or pasty?
Hogs of decent life been cheated
due human palate conceited
+)
-feces piling = https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/13/nc_lagoons_hold_billions_of_gallons
Just hung on the tree
did a green leaf
seemed happy & free
beyond ‘beleaf’
Was ‘leafing it up’
just blowing in the wind
brimming its life’s cup
in sunlight widely grinned
Then from clear sky a tear
fell on its body, wet splash
happiness turned to fear
by a single raindrop brash!
That’s where it went awry
so there goes the ‘treeborhood’
To Heavens it would cry:
there goes my good ‘leaflihood’!
So goes the whining of the leaf-alarmist
in a too lightly triggered, poor me ‘valse triste’
Background music obtrusively
coddle days flap unflagging
keep on churning elusively
prodding, nagging then sagging
Been seeing our hopes quelled
though flashed fleetingly
tantalizing til knelled
then fade cheatingly
If on our life’s path we’re dawdling
what on earth are we modeling?!
edited 06/21/22 1010
Do we barely spare a glance
for Spring’s tender flower
while reaching enraptured trance
when we Online cower?
To seek peace in single pursuit
persevered for its own end
(be it heartrendingly minute)
ain’t that when we may transcend?
Yes, a fair chance when flowers we’re smelling
While squinting online? Case less compelling!
All this dogged insistence
that we’re so deserving
of a prolonged existence
is getting unnerving
In language
so languid
Why languish
so anguished?
Living until fifty
would likely be nifty
While in the seventies
plenty can go wrong
There accrues penalties
for living that long
Even if nursing vain hope
in starry-eyed sanguinity
ain’t the far likelier scope
to end up in ‘penguinity’?
While what time left just rolls on
until earthly life is gone
+)
-‘penguinity’ = (license) the endearing inclination to believe in a swift take-off – even after in perpetuity having frantically been flapping one’s wings and still found oneself stuck on the ground