Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
I don’t hold any sway
Just ever more proof
of having zilch to say
Suspect I’m but a fool
probably prideful
Had hoped witty or cool
even insightful
Lies not here the opportunity
of picking a path harmonic
to great relief of community
and turn ever more laconic?
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
Have gotten too immersed
in stanza & verse
as if being coerced
Outright prose averse
Struck by rhymatic fever
meant my social death knell
Life under lifted cleaver
casts lonely outcast’s spell
Keeps fumbling the prosody
until turns tragicomedy
which fades in aprosody
until picks up in psalmody
The mere sometimes lapse or slip
or am I losing my grip?
+)
-aprosody = (speech pathology) lack of variations in speech, such as speed, tone, and emphasis
-prosody = the study of meter and the art of versification
-psalmody = the act of singing psalms or hymns
-‘rhymatic’ fever = (license) condition that compels to express us in verse of rhyme
Who might you be to berate?
Hold your holy holler!
My sorting aim simple, straight:
paper clips by color
To you perhaps a clip mere wire
cavalierly curved metal
its ingeniousness won’t inspire
or found lacking its mettle?
While to me colored paper clips
strew paths like do rose petals
May distract like succulent lips
Prove gallantry like medals
But then I, like the clips, I consent
am as well of a peculiar bent
Proto-verses stuck in queue
cold shouldered by his Muse
stranded instead with a shrew
seems he’s paying his dues
“Am hardly expecting affection
merely had hoped for direction
so will settle for imperfection!”
he versifies in dejection
Amidst twilight’s hue
in the Word Zoos
phrases won’t accrue
to cheers & boos
His cadence jammed
stone-walling
his stanzas hammed
name calling
Had hoped to glimpse words that would stir dragoons
but found mostly those from burping buffoons
By now dulled by grime their chime
rhymes grinding without cheers
Imposed too many a time
on cornered, hapless ears
To recite brambled rhyme
(obscure its etymology)
is not a victimless crime
Here’s my sincere apology!
but ceaseless the struggle to self-constrain
it shall fail over again & again
My poor heart’s own share of weltschmerz
abates by writing each day
While measured still in kilohertz
keeps disquietude at bay
as well when on bike rides
or admiring a flower
then restlessness subsides
dims futility’s glower
Absorbed in a calm pursuit
in and of its own end
whether in itself minute
ain’t that when we transcend?
Airy verse warmly oblique
blows abaft, blows athwart
Rhyming bursts in thoughtful pique
lighthearted to cavort
Verse anxious to comport
without baring fangs
just aiming to transport
holding back harangues
Make stanzas tight
not staid or prosy
Make the tone light
but not too rosy
Set not out to sway
or to dissuade
Never try upbraid
attempt allay
Show mercy, so don’t hold forth
Have pity, make verses short
+)
-abaft = from the stern
-athwart = right angle to the ship’s center
Lightning storms of ‘insight’
turned but fleeting gales
though did flash clear & bright
verbalizing fails
Pen limply sadly sags
Hand shaking, fumbling
Vocabulary gags
Crisp paper crumbling
Breakthrough just on the brink
yet another reversal!
Wasted sumptuous ink
on what turned mere rehearsal
Attempted cheaply gallant
in overreaching quest
Been courting Blessed Talent
who cold shoulders my zest
Quatrain if lazily loiters
must wheeze, wobble in puncture
While when bravely reconnoiters
shall blow through any juncture
From leisurely spinning cadence
let’s shift up from latency
go cycling with verse’s maidens
with unrestrained ardency
Expressing lucid elation
if ably so in crisp rhymes
may cause to flow a narration
stringed with ethereal chimes