Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
What pusillanimity
socialist insincerity!
Why fake magnanimity
bother with solidarity?
Don’t you know generosity
went long since out of fashion?
Cheap shot of grandiosity
to indulge in compassion!
Thanks, but rather stay solipsistic
than have to pretend altruistic!
When was the most recent time
looking in a mirror
that whistles blew, bells would chime
when viewed ourself clearer?
For in its reflection
on close inspection
we shan’t see perfection
or mass affection
So what, in creation’s aviary
few get to sing like a canary
therefore being a bird ordinary
might perhaps prove most salutary?
Of pride an overdose
dense, too bellicose?
but would be grandiose
to try diagnose
Trying to philosophize
on the meaning of existence
is a frill that ossifies
best focus on co-existence
Try just belong
let’s not be headstrong
“To Get Along”
ought be our theme song
Listen closer to bird song
until our common swan song
Watching my feet
flat on back in bed
in Summer’s heat
how toes wiggle, spread
Watching my feet contoured
against the open windows
most pleasantly endured
as a warm, gentle wind blows:
rushing between toes
as I lusciously doze
timed out from Life’s throes
in refreshing repose
In the very moment spared all woes
from my balding top to wiggling toes
You’re loving effulgence
in Life’s wondrous dance
abounding indulgence
of sweet happenstance
You’re my life’s five star menu
served up in senescence
For me wobbly the venue
outside your dear presence
From our youthful romance
until, soon, our last glance
Faces may look ashen
of cyclists vintage
look as out of fashion
as penny mintage
But on self-selected rounds
cyclists rarely feel repletion
as riding the ups & downs
rarely results in depletion
But they find life off the bike middling
movement without pedaling: piddling
A tree will grow
almost anywhere
perfectly slow.
Of what, whom aware?
We cannot you or me
thrive between boulders.
Lacking unlike the tree
patience, behold hers!
By Nature’s fashion bedight
chilled or damp shade endures
as well in blinding sunlight
stoically inures.
Imperceptibly stretches
the tree shall persevere.
On faintest skyline etches
foliage crystal clear.
While trees shiver in still silence
humans rage in chain saw violence.
That facts be scientific
how plain laughably quaint
boring & soporific
quash them by faith’s feint!
When of own notions reverential
of logic we must be wary
make truth & fairness nonessential
Our wishes must reign primary!
Not to worry, never mind
science couldn’t be wronger!
There’s insight of higher kind:
Faith unhinged is stronger!
Fall’s last leaf quivers
in duty most steadfast
in chilled winds shivers
determined to outlast
The last leaf on the branch
to past Summer hanging true
A rousing rear guard stance
or just blind loyalty’s glue?
When loses its gallant grip
last one to abandon ship!
Came across these lines from a late-Elizabethan era madrigal ‘Now is the Month of Maying’:
“The Spring clad all in gladness
doth laugh at Winter’s sadness”
which inspired the following verse – though pretending that ‘Madrigal’ is the last name of a woman called Elizabeth, who is rather the one feeling gladness & sadness:
While flawless crisp days did excite
on frozen fields bucolic
since then worn thin Winter’s delight
in melting snow to frolic
Patient, fickle & demure
thus arrives next season
to brim with its own allure
clouded from all reason
Dear Elizabeth Madrigal
clearly the most innate thing
for such a thoughtful lovely gal
to join in laughter with Spring!