Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
“Strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days” – Chris Hedges
Indulging each bagatelle
welcoming every distraction?
In our games of show-and-tell
we lack reality traction
Why not live to be able to say
when catches us the Grim Reaper:
‘At least I agonized in the fray
make sure to tell the Gate Keeper!’
Rather in ungainly Reality struggle
than vainly in Fantasy trying to snuggle
Remote entry lights flash, honking horn
just to get into one’s own car?!
Am I the only one left forlorn?
Ain’t this too much, taken too far?
Anywhere left to go to be spared
all that talking, beeping, tinging?
Tell me: Must all ‘happy’ noise be shared
must our ears be buzzing, ringing?
What happened to just plain driving
spared electronic conniving?
Decision making worth not one iota
wobbling, am yet again straddling the fence
Long since depleted my green house gas quota
The same old dead end dance: Ambivalence
Why another near speed of sound detour
thirty thousand feet above the ground?
Tell me, what’s conceivably the allure?
In Life where am I really bound?
Am no longer a sightseer
as found the ‘there’ over there
would no more enrich or endear
than does the ‘here’ back home here
So there, er, here!
Here with her cute Grandma looks
she’s a Jewish princess
when in her kitchen she cooks
up a pile of blintzes
Food to break the Yom Kippur fast
though we’ve been eating all day
but in these bright times who’s aghast?
We’re still ‘breaking the fast’, ok?
How we atone with others & G-d:
we’re all chomping, no one winces
Faith yes, but we must nourish the bod
Don’t be bashful: Pass the blintzes!
My o my, such an unfair fate!
Why’s all this done just to me?
All crumbling at a nose dive rate
how can this allowed to be?
I want to pile up a heap
am eager to consume
and to do so on the cheap.
So rightfully I fume:
Mother Earth, she’s a disaster.
Just thinking of herself, blast her!
Seattle 2012:
Wars, global warming or plight of the poor?
No, paper bags soon 5 cents at the store!
A situation turned dire
that aroused citizens’ ire
And no bags plastic hurt them to the core!
That P is perpetually the victim
at any time, any situation
declares the non-negotiable dictum
inviolate line of demarcation:
First the P impatiently inspects
and condescendingly dissects
Then emphatically disaffects
and contemptuously reject
Exclaims if offered Perfection:
“A set up, attempted sting!”
triggering instant rejection:
“Don’t offer the perfect thing!”
The P never needs to be coerced
A sneeze? “Call the doctor or nurse!”
Salivating, she expects the worst
So why not just line up the hearse?
But if lined up, of course: “Wrong hearse,
wrong coffin, and who stole my purse?”
+)
P = pitshetsh (Yiddish): chronic complainer
In erstwhile other place
in times more civil
in cultures not so base
did we mope, snivel?
While at our present time & place
feeling entitled to whine
stuck in that all consuming chase:
There’s not enough to call mine!
Chasing hard for material parts
absorbed, clinging to illusion
while ensnared in our empty cold hearts
we waste our lives in delusion
From our body we may learn
beyond what mere words can express
what our mind may not discern:
To hold on would be to digress
Old age slips of grasp & grip
may only be appearing so
as we do not at all slip:
Just loosening & letting go
No need cower before What’s Next
just stay calm, let’s attempt unvexed!
So rejoice, nothing is amiss:
Aging is indeed the balmy breeze
soon now we’ll bridge that Great Abyss
to swing on Eternity’s trapeze
How fruitless to mumble the tired line:
‘democracy is in decline’
As well: ‘global warming is benign’
when we certainly lack of spine!
Did we not way back turn off that high road
of erstwhile courageous insistence?
Don’t we instead drive fearfully & slowed
on the ‘back road of least resistance’?
Now way late for democracy
& for human habitat
One faded in hypocrisy
other blew its thermostat