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Feeding fallacies

When on sugar, dairy
meat & chicken fed
our stomachs turn wary
as our waistlines spread

Indulging food, fat & salty
in lifestyle sedentary
downing drinks distilled & malty:
Shortcuts to cemetery!

On the smooth wings of chocolate
we soar into sweetened space
but lightheaded in the cockpit
we’ll crash in nauseous a place

Cheese of ambrosial yellow
sliced so thickly & warm
while the milk cows do bellow
as their udders deform

We leave our conscience unheeded
of ‘dairy farming’ cruel
If not morally enfeebled
wouldn’t we rather slurp gruel?

+)
-gruel = here: how anyone ‘addicted’ to salt, sugar, dairy, meat & sweets would regard any dish lacking these ingredients

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Pose of Rose

There! The thud on the porch
paper is brought in by Rose!
It lights her morning’s torch
settling in reading repose

The pose of her nose close
leaning in perfect adjure
reading in morning’s throes
absent acclaim or abjure

Every page she’s scouring
all news vacuumin’
All newsprint devouring
unmatched acumen

As long as it is all prose
it grabs the affection
of our ’suction cup nose’ Rose
Except the sports section

 

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Hey, Thucydides, that was then. This is now and how!

“Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.”
-Thucydides (c.460 B.C.– c.400 B.C.)

If restraint implies ‘voluntary’ restraint would we these days recognize something so over the top quaint?

Yes, in Antiquity
but regarded now
as mere obliquity
Here is why & how:

Today’s absence of restraint
sustains mindless shopping
above all for more war paint
unjust wars not stopping

Fans fiery fire
absent qualms
by our Empire
dropping bombs

While voices of restraint
raised rarely, echo faint

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The irrepressible activist

While she was quite resolute
maybe not all that astute?

Canning industry she chastised:
“Insufficient space between!
Way too crowded!”, she agonized,
“for each little canned sardine!”

Too narrowly focused
blazed away on her warpath
protests wreaked like locust
until grasped in aftermath:

Surely there’s more sardines crave
than mere space in their tin grave!

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Is searching for Reality the ultimate futility?

Do we dare search for ‘Reality’
certain that we do want it found?
Shan’t it be abject futility
in our culture fantasy gowned?

‘Reality’ has turned plurality
awash in all sorts inanities
Ain’t it then just fumbling futility
trying sort from among vanities?

Not being guided by what’s objective
we got lost in reams of dreams subjective

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Where do not-lived-in verse go?

A verse lacking lived subject
neither uplifts or stings
It won’t engage & project
if lacks air under wings

If the writer didn’t perspire
it won’t grab or aspire
it simply cannot inspire
verse is doomed to expire

A hardly missed verse
carted off by hearse

+)
-lived = here: experienced first hand by the versifier

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A raw deal

When my spouse was enthusiastically on a raw food diet:

Dicing
mixing
fixing
whisking!

After peeling
with feeling
not done chopping
til dropping

Yes! resoundingly to: drying
No! abhorrently to: frying

Raised overhead her clenched paw
when serves another meal
Joyce to the world: “All go raw!”
She’s got you a raw deal!

+)
-go raw = here: a raw, i.e. uncooked diet

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Poor phrases pirated, then prattled parroted

Phrases swift, glib, bouncy & cheap
cascade in bombastic profusion
pile up in bewildering heap
fueling cacophonous confusion

While the lucid sentence garroted
(amidst clamouring derision)
the cliché-like phrase pours parroted
heard as expression elysian

But who among us pays heed?
Let uptight linguists accede

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Pitshetsh

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

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Rejoice, nothing is amiss!

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