Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
With cataclysm impending
our angst won’t be resolved
by adroitly defending
our staying self-involved
We claim cannot find the time
to give to inequality
or bother about the clime
as we favor frivolity
Concerned more with own economy
and our fondness for gastronomy
They walk in Summer weather gorgeous beyond words (at least mine) but seems can’t refrain from ogling their smart phone screens
Roundly outsmarted by their phones
amidst billions fellow clones:
Do they watch sky’s shades of blue
listening to winds rustling leaves
while price checking household glue
or how to foil those cat food thieves?
Are their lives adhering to plans
getting soon to driving that Benz?
We stop & go & turn
for hours bumper to bumper
tempers flare as we churn
Minds melting, bodies plumper
Showing for others slight concern
for fear of us being scammed
Can’t learn from what we don’t discern
with hearts chilly & minds jammed
Thus we hide away in lives silly
taking dead-end paths willy-nilly
‘Lack time’, we lament
but distinctions get lost
when much time misspent
searching for lowest cost
It’s such sad inertia silly
by choosy Ace Consumer
descendant from Ancient Philly
lacking vision & humor
They keep chasing all hell bent
just can’t slow, pause or relent!
+)
Ancient Philly = the area of Philistia. These days a ‘philistine’ is a person who not only ignores all conditions of life which are not her own but also demands that the rest of humankind should fashion its mode of existence after her own
I vad som kan kallas
kanske en arvsrätt
t.o.m åkallas
inom viss folkrätt:
I Frankrike ingen bagatell
att var morgon äta sej mätt
i sed djupt förankrad kulturell
på en nybakad färsk baguette
som varje morgon nationellt
bakas fullkomligt manuellt
If you hunger for conversation
shall ‘customer service’ phrases
(in copious canned aggravation)
restore the art to good graces?
Rather than a slipshod stroll
mongst hackneyed words teeming
don’t we want to fill our soul
with something redeeming?
What might punctured phrases instill
beyond piling up as word fill?
+)
-conversation = a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged – with emphasis on ‘exchanged’
Pugnacious like Prussia
claim Western Values saviors
drab, aggressive Russia
steeped deep in misbehavior
She’s referred to as petulant
in US media news
condescendingly prevalent
in repetitive abuse
Russia is overarmed
unless she disarms
states the U.S. alarmed
with ten times her arms
Russia needs a thorough spanking
Let’s bravely sanction its banking!
Dragoons galloped in the Light Brigade
led by incompetence, stupidity
Now another mind-boggling ‘crusade’
this one in commercial avidity:
Likewise is ‘ours not to wonder why’
when charging in reckless cupidity
ours is just to swipe the card to buy
‘Alive’ while wilting in flaccidity
A lack of reflection on blind obedience
may serve to hide in cowardly expedience
+)
From poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Tennyson about the 1853 Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The British light cavalry charged, due to its leader’s stupidity & incompetence, on a frontal attack right into the lowered muzzles of Russian artillery. Hence “Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.”
We ignore stentorian warning:
Planetary life keeps crumbling
in depletion, pollution, warming
met by our evasive mumbling
We equivocate & grumble
just own convenience is heeded
Glaciers melt & earthquakes rumble
not taking steps urgently needed
Our children & theirs shall pay the price
if we won’t change habits, they’re doomed:
As rivers drain, temperatures rise
ending them too early entombed
But for us, for now, a small price to pay
for enjoying the American Way?
He’s a hot air exhauster
ignorant, crassly truculent
this brash White House imposter
whose lies many find succulent
Conceited we might just wonder:
“Cannot do better, America?!”
Exceptionalism a blunder
by now hardly esoterica:
that when our egos grow outsized
as humans we’ll shrink to pint-sized
+)
-Exceptionalism = American Exceptionalism: “Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.” – Thomas Jefferson