Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Upward in the crackling fire
of human commotion:
heated words flare, float in ire
howling in emotion
Prancingly they spew
ephemeral
through wide open flue
hotly feral
Swooping out like larks
from shades mislaid
burning, zinging sparks
cool off, then fade
Those cruel words of agony
stay seared in our memory
as if galloping cavalry
pounded them to emery
Every regret’s ember
dooms us to remember
An insightful article on the Obama phenomena:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175816/
inspired this verse:
Unfounded self confidence
in pompous presumption
pretending at omniscience
while shows up compunction
His baritone oratory:
Delivery alluring
while hollow declaratory
doesn’t come across assuring
Stands with those on Wall Street
against the pitchforks
His White House found effete
fast fizzled fireworks
His bringing us cool pure fantasy
in hollow cowardly drama
“Change You Can Believe In” alchemy
darkly deepens nation’s trauma
How did we turn so immobile
erstwhile engaged citizens
indulging pursuits puerile
with baffling indifference?
Bowled over by his locomotion
hawking his brand of self-promotion?
+)
-‘change you can believe in’ = Obama’s election campaign slogan
-citizen = there can be no democracy without informed & engaged citizens
-compunction = uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action
-pitchforks = I’m the only thing between you and the pitchforks”, the President told a gathering of big bank CEOs on April 3, 2009:
edited 04/17/22 0900
Tirelessly our hapless Tongue
so recklessly wagging
Keeps hurling havoc far flung
bragging, ragging, snagging!
Our self-righteous racing Mind
contentiously nagging
How unrestrained we’ve opined
in pursuit unflagging!
Let our Hearts be more than pumps non-excitable:
The place where we live ‘tinderly’ ignitable
+)
‘tinderly’ = interweaving ‘tinder’ with ‘tender’
His pompous, facile verbiage soars
while lying through his gleaming teeth
The figurehead lets us down while scores
his Beltway knife loosened in sheath
His faux ‘Change You Can Believe In’ brand
once seductive consumer pitch
now shown up as empty, stale & bland
still serves the powerful & rich
A President so crisp & elegant
coolly projects noble sentiments
but were his soaring speeches eloquent
helpful for those in drab tenements?
One shameless, specious scheme of bait & switch:
Saying versus doing without a glitch
+)
The Beltway = metaphor (from it’s D.C. locus) for the Power Elite
Hooked on voraciously soul sucking screens
in their eerie sheen ubiquitous
Been had by corporate marketing schemes
To celeb culture obsequious
No flirtation. Hit hard on
by forces hellacious
in consumer-tech’s brash con
its pursuits vexatious
Our culture predaceous, duplicitous
a future crashing in crassitude
in a society iniquitous
we languish feebly in lassitude
Been trading snug solidarity
for barbed & smug insularity
No one may be a belittler
of the Evils brought by Hitler!
Still what is now holding sway
in ignorance fabled
to History’s sheer dismay
others are now labeled:
Like Hitler! Not like but worse
claim elites Americanized!
Unhinged, untenable curse
lie kept alive propagandized
Scripted snappy talk ‘on the surface’
passes now for civility
like spouted in customer service
with breezy ease & certainty
While on screens placidly self absorbed
aloof from solidarity
is this where we think ourselves adored
embraced in popularity?
Shall (in a world harshly hackable)
head down texting keep us placable?
Found too light when in action weighed
too many losing hands played?
Sheltering in verbiage’s shade
nerves shot & memory frayed?
Why do suffer ourselves talking
when from vital subjects strayed
avoiding, defending, balking
by flawed perspectives waylaid?
As well wise not to opine
on someone else’s hemline
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
Through fully opened sluice
words gush profusely
wave follows wave obtuse
ashore diffusely
Conveyed in smarmy smooth style
modulated, attuned
words customized to beguile
glibly, quickly communed
Words mindless of direction
locked in obduracy
empty of much reflection
pound in profligacy
If you take to heart much of what blurts
then you shall receive your just deserts!
+)
just deserts = (idiomatic) punished in a manner appropriate to one’s actions (plural only & indeed spelled ‘deserts’ while pronounced as if ‘desserts’)