Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
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
Our bodies, minds now fraying
of erstwhile bounce bereft
Our wrinkles deepened, graying
hair of what little left
Years bland or full were they deft
countless days in reprise
Dragging us by heft & theft
closer to our demise
Arrived at earthly life’s edge
we must not age apart
allow between us no wedge
Together, let’s take heart!
Our bodies, minds now fraying
of erstwhile bounce bereft
Our wrinkles deepened, graying
hair of what little left
Years bland or full were they deft
countless days in reprise
Dragging us by heft & theft
closer to our demise
Arrived at earthly life’s edge
we must not age apart
allow between us no wedge
Together, let’s take heart!
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
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