Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
From the workforce now retired
but otherwise unexpired!
While in earlier years, prior
I had the fleeting notion
of hearing the Heavenly Choir
filling me with emotion:
that toiling away in the bike shop
would prove my life’s blowout puncture
The terminal ‘end of the line’ stop
with no transfer at that juncture
For now my mind keeps inquiring
although more & more misfiring
+)
the bike shop = my, at the time, place of work
Youth’s breezy wide grin:
‘Have got it handled!’ look
Chiseled upbeat chin
behold the crisp paged book
Aging’s wheezing scowl:
‘Can’t figure it out?’ look
Sagging dangling jowl
behold the well worn book
So act while you’re still a prancer
when got every quick, right answer!
Thanks but, they’re mere hinges
Worse though is my mind
bumping on the fringes
To some: too opined
Were it only mind & knees
what a gentle, kindly breeze!
But Life is howlingly intractable
careens oddly, nefariously
Life’s play is but tenuously actable
although sometimes hilariously
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
Saplings needn’t travel the world
they grew in place & peace
while men in youth’s folly whirled
in impatient caprice
Tree and man now old, flagging:
while thick foliage, man’s hair thin
Both bent & sorely sagging
tree still a tree, man mere has-been
Do tell why pursue & rush around
when at perfect peace in our own ground?
His life’s edging catastrophic:
Seldom hoisted a trophy
Spouted but faux philosophic
Wrote no endearing strophe
Field of ‘talents’ left too long fallow
guts now weak, motivation shallow
Still calls for resuscitation
tries stagger ahead full bore!
No time for procrastination
tries charge with a last gasp roar:
As better a bullet in one’s heart
than fleeing and shot in one’s rear part!
Of rosy hued vigor drained
off course veered, dropped anchor
‘Just’ causes no longer feigned
subsided rush, rancor
Hearing himself he cringes
pompous in the arcane
Laboring on the fringes
struggling with the mundane
No longer plagued in the throes
of fables lastly shorn
About nothing much he crows
gray, worn – but not forlorn
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!
By diffidence tormented
midst misgivings flurried
Absence of peace lamented
for own comfort worried
In life he turned ‘marshmallowed’
swam only where shallow
In cowardice had wallowed
thus aged while still callow
While guilty of many a faux pas
so at least he doesn’t expect applause
They used to all together
peskily be swarming
flew in all sorts of weather
as well farm ‘barn storming’
Now one buzzes alone
feebly, risking stall
by cold, shifting winds blown:
The Last Fly of Fall
Flight pattern erratic
dropped altitude
traumatic, near static
down on attitude
Hark jarring vibration!
Horror! Airspeed drops!
Fatal vacillation!
Tail spin, then fly flops!
It has crashed, feet in air:
its worn wings wrinkled
lit emergency flare
shows fly parts sprinkled
A fly whom the Gods love dives young
still vivacious, hellacious!
Those who fly too long live unsung:
turn loquacious, vexatious!