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Spare me the natter over hors d’oeuvres platter

Fumbling yet another glass
over hors d’oeuvre platter
spouting platitudes in mass
Spare me such void natter!

Such vain, self absorbed rattle
in verbiage feckless
midst milling about cattle
dressed in tie & necklace

Voices shrill, blaring
breathlessly ‘reporting’
onslaught unsparing
conversation-thwarting

How did we turn admass?
Why so untoward
when a subject impasse
brings silence awkward?

Time’s up, we may leave
just smile & swoon
Hardly cause to grieve
bye, until soon!

+)
-‘reporting’ = here: boorishly droning on about one’s own most mundane doings

 

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Just slab on more lotion!

In 2012 Mitt Romney received strong applause when he said: “President Obama promises to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise is … to help you and your family!”

Delegates went ecstatic
Thinking gelatinous
Attitude fringe fanatic
Logic calamitous

“Slowing ocean rise, no!
Me & us now, yes!
Go Mitch go, way to go!
He’s our guy, God bless!”

Rising heat & ocean?
Just slab on more lotion!

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Self-entitlement’s fangs bared

Agony fills our bones
while minds racing, our guts churn
like crawling on coarse stones
For change our heavy hearts yearn

Social bonds no longer prized
irreparably frayed
Everything commoditized
trust & manners decayed

In Empire’s Wars & Celeb Cultures
self-entitlement’s fierce fangs bared
turning us into whiny vultures
Only poverty deeply shared

Little of wisdom debated
or of shared humanity
Neighborhoods fearfully gated
in self absorbed vanity

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To slick pretense we got inured

Corporation stock ‘worth’ billions
while people down on their luck
CEOs ‘make’ untold millions
while others squeeze a last buck

Once solidarity discarded
those in need shall be derided
as irresponsibly retarded
their gripes dismissed as misguided

Integrity by now denuded
to slick pretense we got inured
How did we become so deluded
from justice so easily lured?

 

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How the consummate consumer’s mind works

Offer:
“I can either give you,  no strings attached,  lots of cash and introductions to interesting, fun and beautiful people.  Or arrange for some thugs to drag you behind the nearest building and beat you with a steel pipe!”

Response:
“I need some more information. What kind of a steel pipe?”

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Brash opinions know not stage fright

Hoping against hope: Save my poor ear
not another repetition!
For who among us do care to hear
such runaway feeble fission?

Garrulity gone meteoric
in hapless nation dysphoric
while the gushing foamy rhetoric
soars in distortions historic

Brash opinions know not stage fright
or usefulness of sound bite
in election spectacle’s blight
accentuates all what’s trite

Those who opine show no contrition
for their spewing words pernicious
or for the lack of inhibition
on narrow paths injudicious

edited 12/04/21 1635

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On Cruise of Illusion

M/V ‘America’ slipped its mooring
now tossing like a cork on roughest sea
Crew, brainwashed, chants: “Sea calm like flooring
we’re no sailor serfs but well fed & free”!

All but entertainment is a bore
so grant us bantering & glee
by those who us gullible adore:
The Celebs we so pine to be

But hold the laughs! Check the ship’s wake
the helmsman doesn’t know sailing
wake looks like a slithering snake
In bilges no one bailing

A nation on a cruise of illusion
course plotted by a Seasick Master
immune to Reality intrusion.
Just below horizon: Disaster!

Safe on the upper deck
proclaims The Power Elite:
“So what if looms a wreck
we own the whole lifeboat fleet!”

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Hands off, TSA! Out of my way!

Valiant armchair warriors’ voices shrill
Treasury depleted by trillions
Hapless young soldiers sent to maim & kill
feckless foreigners by the millions

Though that ‘underwear bomb’ blew no hole
the Homeland Industry grows, rocks
A dud as well that ‘bomb in a sole’
still we’re here lined up in our socks

Here’s the ridiculous rub:
no more risk risk to fly
than slipping in your bathtub
Where did we go awry:

Distant countries laid in ruinous states
while TSA pats down our ample waists

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Fades life’s rosy bouquet

Withers life when nears the end
fades its rosy bouquet
What was once a stirring blend
now a sagging souffle

Sensory life squall after squall
tiring & worn from the grind
while pretenses mercifully fall
fleetingly we find peace of mind

Leaving behind the mundane
saved from banality
heading into the arcane
welcome finality!

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Wings feebly flapping, in armchairs flopping

Once perhaps eagles, now wobbly geese
ages passed since we looked strapping
Now spectators of silly & sleaze
in armchairs flopping, tongues flapping

In our sugar & fat fueled rut
guzzling, chomping fast food junk
outwards bulges that beach ball gut
no bounce left for cheery spunk

Not letting inequality
or climate calamity
spoil our fun & frivolity!
Busy on screens, can’t you see?

Rather ‘amusing ourselves to death’
than fighting for working democracy
we’re consuming, wheezing out of breath
in willful ignorant hypocrisy

+)
‘Amusing ourselves to death’ = (1985) book title by Neil Postman