If wrung drained, filled with misgiving
Day dawns in anticipation
morning opens up ‘wide screen’
There’s fleeting exhilaration
as off to work we careen
But soon fades the day in routine
stuck on the corporate track
where indignity and caffeine
afford little joy or slack
If at the day’s end we’re found drained, filled with misgiving
shall we still be counted among the truly living?
%) Seeking shiny ribbons
The consistently failing but still not changing U.S. foreign policy: Why don’t they ever learn?!
On the contrary! The Power Elite has learned only too well from their ‘mistakes’ & remain ever so determined to repeat them. These ‘mistakes’ feed their heady hubris and float their depraved delusions while amply providing notoriety, power, profits, careers, ribbons, pensions.
Steeped in inequality & iniquity, the Elite cannot be much bothered about the dire & deadly consequences to other people at home or abroad.
Before the tales of Gibbon
humans swung like gibbons
off to war, way quickly gone
seeking shiny ribbons
Since our Species’ dawn
man pounded chest
with taunt, flexing brawn:
“Who’s the bravest?”
The Elite gets People excited
about foreign machinations
to trust propaganda benighted:
We’re upholding laws of nations!
Though the Elite doesn’t have People’s welfare in mind
it can carry on – as we’re a cowardly kind
Smart phone seemed lost but then was found
When your phone seemed lost
prima facie
didn’t you blame, accost
going crazy?
Then found! You were returned
from despair’s deepest canyon
No longer were you spurned
by your Dearest Companion!
How you had yearned to be prompted
back in ‘phonily’ graces
charmingly enticed & wanted
held in torrid embraces!
You may find it condescending
if labeled ’smartphonistic’
though hopefully not offending
but simply sybaritic?
Now you’re back in Reality
in cool nuzzling normality!
Hapless at their mercy, reduced to smile & curtsy
Those hectoring, obscure scenes:
don’t know a single nut or bolt
behind those crisp shiny screens
against which hopeless to revolt
Without an apology
the techno-fix is in
by latest frivolity
we cannot fix a thing
Large corporations with such ease
(we’re hapless at their mercy)
charges us hefty service fees
We’re left to smile & curtsy
Ours is not to understand how
but (whilst being scammed) acclaim ‘wow!’
Peace of Other Kind, than Mind, found in Consumer Land?
Does goods shown with perky snappiness
by such breathless marketing fanned
bring but material happiness
fulfillment in Consumer Land …
… while Peace of Mind ever vernal
must unceasingly be yearned
grasped fleetingly, though eternal
cannot be bought, might be earned
Senseless then if out shopping sheepishly
as the true price thereof piles steepishly?
Must be realistic? No need, just stay optimistic!
This we can’t be facing
best shut up, be nice!
Let’s just keep on racing
on lake’s melting ice
Though species are abating
let’s collude: All is cool!
and ain’t polite berating
denial’s nonplussed fool
What’s the need to be realistic
when we can just stay optimistic?
Gone, gold button luster
General George Custer
died raiding, forlorn
Of no help his bluster
at Little Bighorn
Gone gold button luster
many men are dead
Peacock chesty Custer
what was in his head?
The hubristic quagmire:
even when not pierced by lance
the outcome sure & dire
of all empires’ arrogance
… despite that we cheer in the bleachers!?
The Elite’s claims spout spurious
its logic & facts futile
Outcomes to us injurious
their domination brutal
By their jingoistic ways stirred
we ignore injustice rife
while succumbing in lives absurd
filled with suffering & strife
So why do we listen to their speeches
even cheering them on from the bleachers?!
Mornful seagulls shrieking
Morning dawns intently
on ‘coming to’ human fray
Kind sun rays shine gently
upon yet another day
Way below mournful seagulls
mournful their shrieking earfuls:
Humans scuffle in barbarity
set for yet another drubbing
Shunning of most solidarity
scurrying, our faint hearts flubbing
Twisted like acrobatic acts
to engineer outcomes perverted
opinions offered up as facts
then glibly, haughtily asserted
On recklessness binged
in forward pose
pours on claims unhinged
anything goes!
These days seem veracity
as well as morality
eclipsed by mendacity
in foam bath banality
In times erstwhile weren’t we restrained
by facts as being impregnable?
Perhaps too old to be retrained
for when few norms are detectable
Now floating away dazzled
from Reality’s shores
we’re too creaky & frazzled
to keep pulling the oars
Thus on waves of distraction we’re drifting
when did we last do something uplifting?
+)
facts = “Factual evidence, since it is an impediment to what we desire, is banished” – Chris Hedges
edited 08/15/24 1730