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?
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!
While short time now remaining
got all time presently
(in real-time, without feigning)
to listen pleasantly
While I was listening
to understand too harebrained
my heart wasn’t enlisting
back when ample time remained
Could only have playacted
as feeling compassion
when so blithely distracted
not the youthful fashion
I’ve been clueless of a lot
but right now my ear you got
The ‘One Nation Exceptional’
now resoundingly unmasked
while ‘Greatness’ just conceptional
still being pitched unabashed:
Ready for another bait & switch?
He’s prickly, prone to toddler fits
This time around plays in mega kitsch
short on manners, knowledge & wits
Howls in a hurricane of glitz
klutzy & shallow clamor
disingenuous repeat fits
A narcissistic scammer
A vainglorious con artist
from reality unhitched
Voters not informed or smartest
being too easily sales pitched!
Mindless consumer minions
though can’t be bothered with facts
entitled to their opinions
as propaganda distracts:
whether in The Beltway or backwoods
sadly they buy a sick bill of goods
+)
-The Beltway = the Washington, DC power elite
-One Nation Exceptional:
“The United States has always been corrupt, savage and brutal. It has always been wildly dysfunctional and hypocritical. But now, thanks to a president-elect who is loudly ignorant and utterly devoid of impulse control the mask is off. The horrible truth about the United States can no longer be denied. Trump epitomizes truth in advertising. We’re a nasty, crappy country. President Trump suits us fine.” – Ted Rall
Oh, what nonsense conferred
Claiming it is us who drive
while in backseat chauffeured
How we presume & connive!
We wobble gushingly inane
Us boorish bloviators
we hobble on presumption’s cane
rubber sword gladiators
We ignore contradiction
with our suavest diction
Our syntax dereliction
turns pureed affliction
Between reality and fiction
there’s absolute absence of friction
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
Consumer electronics, what impatience
be they alarms, smart phones, pads or scanners!
Where went subtlety, flirtation, elation
as well courtesy, humor & manners?
Outpouring in relentless profusion
steeped in undiscerning commotion
Suspended in a Land of Illusion
pounding away in self promotion
High time now to disengage with forethought
as fear being changed in to a robot!
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
This verse is about those among of us who routinely ‘report’, i.e. who monopolize what otherwise might pass for participatory conversation, and instead provide a mindless stream of unsolicited, tedious accounts of personal trivia. ‘They’ are those who indulge themselves in such fashion. ‘We’ refers to those among us who pretend to listen rather than speaking up.
Inane silliness they propound
oblivious of how they do bore
running colloquy’s ship aground
prop churning in air, bow stuck ashore
Brusquely do they choose to fail
noticing some snoring
while they sweat every detail
Hot air balloons soaring
We’re dragged through verbiage’s marsh
put-upon minds splashed numb
In knee deep slog, soaked & harsh
our hapless hearts splotched glum
While silently we’re imploring:
“You blabbering, boorish bum
please plug that oozing outpouring
grant us mercy! Try out mum!”
+)
prop = propeller; here: image of a grounded ship
Watch him, in comfy chair, swivel:
Pontificates, pronounces
Spouts such tiresome piles of drivel
ridicules & denounces
Regurgitates like a pup
one which hungrily licks
up the breakfast just thrown up
in never changing fix
You’d think had he his wits
he would’ve called it quits!