Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
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
When we prattle & gush
our words get overweening
like wild waterfalls rush
washes away most meaning
When we’re letting fly
with sentences mangled
it shall go awry
til communing strangled
Words which rapidly multiply
won’t explain, cannot clarify
A puzzling precedent
when the Elites coalesce
round a past President
and craftily reassess:
Ain’t Bush2, the Iraq war criminal,
well on way on his own road liminal?
+)
liminality = (Latin līmen: a threshold) is the quality of ambiguity that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete
Noticed someone stared
looking mighty unkind
stressed me that it dared
left me feeling maligned
Neighbor’s small dog’s nostrils flared
got me triggered, re-traumatized
with its rice-sized-shaped teeth bared
behooved me getting authorized:
to reclaim my fair share of trauma
indulge my symptoms in high drama!
While proven wrong
myths been cemented
by now since long
turned minds demented
Fantasies sweet scented
in hapless hyperbole
excuses invented
passed off as reality
As U.S. exceptionalism being denuded
in wilful ignorance citizens hide deluded
Let’s try stay on subject
be it with a meek ho-hum
before we just defect
wandering off in humdrum
Like some clueless critter
swept up in the fray
helpless, lost in flitter
can’t suppress our bray
Do we indulge in what is distracting
as we’re finding most else too exacting?
Mass media propagandistic
in a nation feudalistic
exaggerates threats terroristic
make us serfs cheer jingoistic
While deeply stirred by populism
we’re held back by cynicism
mightily fearing socialism
truly preferring tourism
When sacking solidarity
we live in barbarity
in punishing polarity
dispatched to disparity
Our cheers ring out chauvinistic
that’s amongst us nativistic
Written when the promotional idea for vaccination was floated that people taking a Covid shot should be automatically enrolled in a $ lottery.
“A shot for my health
why my concern?
But for my own wealth
that I discern!”
Won’t Public Health by $ lottery
sadly show up our souls as watery?
By refusing vaccination
we lack solidarity
in communal abdication
clueless insularity
“It’s freedom
to be a bum
Te Deum
jabs, who need ’em?”
While we can’t let it be our lot
to humor this kind of crackpot?
Sloth congeals the erstwhile heart tender
when mired in petty transactions
misses out on Life’s wondrous splendor
dissipates in dumb distractions
So dare go for that fling
pull hard the bow’s string
decline that gadget thing
avoid the Right Wing
Don’t thoughtlessly conform
or recklessly barnstorm!