Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
I’m no ‘poet’ hifalutin
mere ‘versifier’ callow
who does his own in foot shooting
writing rhyming verse shallow
A superficial spin drier
of phrases oddly acquired
Just dressed up in pretend attire
for yet a show uninspired
Proclaim prim ‘poetry fellows’:
“Let’s send that versifier
off to illiterate gallows
that foul, faux falsifier!”
But while ‘poets’ opine with such gumption
what if they’re just sloshing in presumption?
A Democracy that works for most of us depends upon a well informed and consistently engaged public:
By main stream media conformed
erstwhile ‘hard news’ turned entertainment:
offers up a worldview malformed
keeps us powerless by containment
Opinions spouted unformed
by impatience upstaged
To facts & logic not warmed
in ignorance encaged
From mounting calamities disengaged
with any sense of urgency assuaged
Doesn’t make an intellectual
just ’cause on mundane life’s path
he’s clumsy, ineffectual
or does not do well at math
No oratorical giant
when merely didactical
only impressing those pliant
dreamers most impractical
So before in verbiage he basks
best wait and see if anyone asks?
Unfazed by our own pretension
grasp of issues flagrantly hazy
Hard to listen, pay attention
when intellectually lazy
Fleetingly attracted
we find what’s brief protracted
Swiftly we’re distracted
too much from us exacted
Triggered as if by bump stock
with scant effort to aim
we keep spraying our stump talk
through story line so lame
Relieved when can finally defect
hopping on to a next fresh subject
Strive for the role of the avower
who explores the Truth together
Shun arguments to overpower
which makes us our lost bellwether
Don’t throw in that red herring
surreptitiously non-glaring
diverts the discourse, erring
away on fallacious bearing
Such a disingenuous hoax
throws off good faith dialogue
like the stick thrust in bike wheel spokes
leaves our quest crashed epilogue
Been losing our sweet tooth
for what erstwhile was Truth?
The smartphone obsession
impairs our mental mettle
restrains in regression
fades fast erstwhile fine fettle
Claims of ‘doing our research’
just clicking profusion
Silly stupefying smirch
cutting short conclusion!
Thus we’re torn asunder
while we’re going under
Let’s not use logic or facts
as way burdensome to prepare
fitting into our talking tracts
Much easier to just declare!
Who cares for solidarity
never mind the aftermath
Stay with stale insularity
let’s walk our own primrose path
on which responsible objectivity
won’t risk meet with scantest receptivity
Dare to question Tech Perfection
beyond granted latitude
and we’ll face instant rejection
thus won’t change Tech’s attitude
Our misgivings of Technology
is not to slander and belie
It shows signs of own pathology
fever chart racing up awry
Why do we march, lockstep with spring
obeying each ring & flash?
How long let brash gadgets go ‘ting’
while draining our cards of cash?
Just as long as we allow it
feed the Beast and we’ll endow it!
Our stinginess with language
as we gush emojis, cliches
ought it not augment anguish
over a deepening malaise?
Won’t we see how incurious
how mired in inanity
we’re when spouting claims spurious
in know-it-all vanity?
Ain’t it easily perceptional
that we’re nowhere near exceptional?
O, how smugly incurious
in our vapid vanity
when facts we declare spurious
clinging to inanity!
Smooth snappiness in language
emojis, tropes, cliches
Cannot conceal our anguish
of deepening malaise:
such as we’re The Nation Exceptional
always indistinctly conceptional