Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Humans hardly benign
perhaps not evil
while by will or design
still just primeval?
As when in jam exigent
without known precedent
why’s our response negligent
cowardly hesitant?
Is planet Earth merely God’s petri dish?
Humans his experiment with death wish?
Lightning storms of ‘insight’
turned but fleeting gales
though did flash clear & bright
verbalizing fails
Pen limply sadly sags
Hand shaking, fumbling
Vocabulary gags
Crisp paper crumbling
Breakthrough just on the brink
yet another reversal!
Wasted sumptuous ink
on what turned mere rehearsal
Attempted cheaply gallant
in overreaching quest
Been courting Blessed Talent
who cold shoulders my zest
Our faces turning craggy
Synapses misfiring
Jowls & butts sinking saggy
Worn thinly brain’s wiring
Daily routines found conspiring
full of setbacks & wrinkles
New challenges cause perspiring
Long since we felt goose pimples
Civility sorely lagging
Screeched promotions propitious
abound posturing & bragging
pitches puffed-up, suspicious
No punishment but reward
when in old age we’re ignored
+)
-propitious = indicative of favor; presenting favorable circumstances
-wrinkle = a trick or dodge; crease in the skin
Quatrain if lazily loiters
must wheeze, wobble in puncture
While when bravely reconnoiters
shall blow through any juncture
From leisurely spinning cadence
let’s shift up from latency
go cycling with verse’s maidens
with unrestrained ardency
Expressing lucid elation
if ably so in crisp rhymes
may cause to flow a narration
stringed with ethereal chimes
Overseas millions killed, maimed
Their plight we belittle
concern rarely even feigned
to change noncommittal
Worn narrative straining
nation’s honor stained
In an empire waning
integrity sprained
The President’s smooth hollow words
just shows up paralysis
whether on climate, jobs or Kurds
Bring on urinalysis:
Enough specious words
by Ivy League nerds!
+)
-president = written originally under Obama
-urinalysis = here: to identify those ‘high’ on Imperial hubris
Stolid Sweden 1950:
Grandma daily read the news
Life then was safe, sane & nifty
even so she ‘cried the blues’
Bemoaned through ages old persons:
“What’s it coming to this world?”
Alarming how quick it worsens
changes nakedly unfurl!
These days no longer perception
It’s here: Impending Collapse
way beyond aging’s deception
For humans its ‘bugling taps’ …
For phantom power & glitz
sold himself as a tool
hoping that his obsequence
pleased CEO cruel
A hapless well dressed lackey
who smiles kind of smugly
though presents himself wacky
worshipingly rugly
Couldn’t hew the bottom line agenda
so he tripped up (by lacking gall)
on the corporate hacienda!
But got up, crawled back & didn’t bawl
Awash in quarterly profits bosses drool
still justify sack lackey just before yule
+)
-yule = here: period Dec 24-Jan 06
-‘rugly’ = (made up): as in ‘Go ahead, Madame or Sir, do walk all over me!’
She’s so superbly kinetic
stands ready to whack the weed
Stillness a painful emetic
she functions best at high speed
She’s perpetually Joyce
when invaded by task
never knows another choice
but in busy to bask
Takes off in a blaze
her face stern, drained
in hypnotic daze
to task ordained
Hers is always total focus
until all the effort spent
Then changes in phone booth locus
back, but briefly, to Claire Kent
+)
-Claire Kent = superwoman in civvies, equivalent (at least) of Clark Kent
Mortal Socrates and Jesus Divine
left behind not a single written line
Since then many others have rather
penned in infinite profusion
Much, be it elegant, still blather
compounding human confusion
Swift, countless like birds
in shrieking flock
failing, flailing words
of squawk & schlock
Awkward sentences churning
leave us achingly yearning
Verbosity’s mercenary
he speaks when unnecessary
as the lights of restraint
these days flicker but faint
No blather too arbitrary