Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Got a sweet crush
on robust rush?
The activity junkie
moved by proclivity
ever foraging, spunky
in reactivity
Must keep up the constant clanking
as quiet locomotion
found infinitely more rankling
than noisiest commotion
and stopping to catch one’s breath
would surely be to risk death!
We grin while from all sides beset
gleaming gadgets stock-piling
slogging in usurious debt
but offers so beguiling!
When jokes rarely hilarious
what remains entertaining?
In crowds we fake gregarious
Clarity of thought waning
Jaded discouragement reigning
fizzled our aspirations
Interest, engagement feigning
parched by drought our flirtations
Energy too quickly drained
Events uninspiring
Faculties eerily strained
Even sleep turned tiring
Taste blandly the same most meals
Phone & computer hacked
Distracted by doltish deals
Life’s precious china cracked
So, would it not be overdue
to leave Life’s ‘silly season’
where way too much has gone askew
and instead pursue reason?
Saving time only to see it squandered
on ‘easy come, easy go’ paths wandered?
Time rules in our enslaved existence
so we keep up the frantic fuss
traipsing the ‘path of least resistance’
and allowing it to own us
In ‘me first’ scuffles we collude
amidst unrelenting rush
Noses to multiple screens glued
Gush, much fuss. Not enough blush
So then why not let ‘mindful & slow’
rather than ’scurrying nonplussed’
prevail as the default way to go
chancing to let settle the dust?
Living at our own pace
let’s us wander with grace
Forlorn, dark wet branches
stretch into gray sky
As morning advances
voices drawing nigh:
Not another rainy day!
Declared in thoughtless haste
a jilted overcast day
that we’re resigned to waste?
Let’s find a deeper way of gleaning
each day for its purpose & meaning!
When on sugar, dairy
meat & chicken fed
our stomachs turn wary
as our waistlines spread
Indulging food, fat & salty
in lifestyle sedentary
downing drinks distilled & malty:
Shortcuts to cemetery!
On the smooth wings of chocolate
we soar into sweetened space
but lightheaded in the cockpit
we’ll crash in nauseous a place
Cheese of ambrosial yellow
sliced so thickly & warm
while the milk cows do bellow
as their udders deform
We leave our conscience unheeded
of ‘dairy farming’ cruel
If not morally enfeebled
wouldn’t we rather slurp gruel?
+)
-gruel = here: how anyone ‘addicted’ to salt, sugar, dairy, meat & sweets would regard any dish lacking these ingredients
subject to rash off-key abuse?
Just dumped in to the impatient fray
like ever-so-smooth TV news?
Trying express ourselves clearly
seems taxing work, so we balk
rings socially too austerely
Try listen? We’d rather talk!
What if blabber became the umbrage
while restraint conversation’s glue
in enjoyment of graceful language
shared beyond a literate few?
But as for that prospect chimeric
we’re subjected to ‘reporting’
which the blabbermouths find mesmeric
too often outright transporting
+)
‘reporting’ = unsolicited droning on about one’s own mundane doings
When to consume feels choking
by gorging & swilling
somewhat akin to croaking
from stuffing & filling
Then slicing to quintessence
chaos turns clarity
sails out in luminescence
opens to charity
Be it just fleetingly of course
as much of that what I write
keeps turning out manure by horse
or at best of boorish sleight
Still rather write in faux creativity
than reading in lethargic passivity
When young I truly had no inkling
that I was but incipient
My alarm bell was never tinkling
while acted out my idiot
Traits that might disenchant
were so far constrained
My inner sycophant
kept grinning harebrained
Pathetic but hadn’t been in a rush
to question much my attitude
Middle age laid bare with horrid blush
my erstwhile lack of rectitude
Seems still that part of my essence
might consist of channeling
in blabbering omnipresence
my hapless inner changeling
It ain’t what I would like to see
or not who I prefer to be
although afraid it’s somehow me
from whom I’m unable to flee
Beltway stuck lascivious
in politics insidious
Flimsy pretexts devious
brings on aggression hideous
Elated by advanced hardware
men in power act like boys
Those ‘warriors of the armchair’
want power, ribbons & toys
Safely back home they adore war
martially heroic lore
Ordering troops to roar & gore
to settle a phantom score:
Merciless U.S. guns
destroyed poor Iraq
Couldn’t even sweep the crumbs
left from this ‘cake walk’
While the U.S. been unable to defeat
‘medieval’ Taliban, al-Qaeda bands
North Koreans, Cubans or Vietnamese
‘enemies’ in the world’s modest back lands
Now foments a new Cold War with the Kremlin
such as in Ukraine by regime change coup
but Donetsk & Crimea, far from crumbling
stands up to Kiev’s neo-Nazi hue
Thus fresh from ’successes’ up next:
Pivoting with mindless ease
supercilious muscles flexed:
Trying bully the Chinese!
Droning on about its ‘finest hour’
while fading fast its sense & power
+)
-the Beltway = the U.S. power elite
-phantom score = Contrary to e.g. John Quincy Adams’ foreign policy aspirations of 1821:
“But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
Feeble verse he nurses
mostly with reverses
Claims he just converses
though he rants & curses
in purloined blustering
sputtering, blundering:
Comely comedy
turns crotchety
Tearful tragedy
turns travesty
Thus his stilted blather
shows no dreams or sense
Foamy stanzas lather
puffed up in pretense
He prattles & perplexes
while verbiage accrues
Watch him how he digresses
swerves through ‘fast verse’ drive-thrus