Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
My dental hygienist told me that one of her patients did, when getting their teeth cleaned by water pressure, actually exclaim:
“Teeth cleaning like water boarding!”
provides a dental chair glimpse
of sample comment affording
by ignorant ‘First World’ wimps
Sense of compassion unformed?
Oddly non-reflective?
Aren’t they sadly uninformed
so lacking perspective …
but that must be hard to see
when all revolves around ‘ME’?
Written in 2015
First couple of Empire
so tall, fit and lean
leading us in quagmire
smiling, waiving, preen.
While both o so chichi
ain’t he a bit preachy?
Should’ve minded caveat emptor
of “Change You Can Believe In”!
stuck with “Hope and Change” Emperor
who proves ever deceiving.
Misses no chance to endorse
while he’s killing by drone
‘The World’s Finest Fighting Force’.
Predecessors’ true clone.
“We left Iraq”, says he, “Heads held high!”
How (aghast!) can that be, why?
When million people had to die
still nothing sensed gone awry?!
+)
-chichi = showily or affectedly elegant or trendy
-‘heads held high’ = “The last American soldier will cross the border out
of Iraq with their head held high, proud of their success and knowing
that the American people stand united in our support for our troops”
– Obama, Oct 2011
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
While open to critique
I’m of course quite unique
You must let me bespeak
with responses oblique
And I do declare
let me ensnare
I do not forswear
being unfair
For my subjectivity
is surely, I declare,
the true objectivity
Beyond that should I care?
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
Here they go to war again
to make up for policy flawed
The pretext this time Ukraine
sending in military awed!
Narrative but forlorn fiction
with handy excuses mostly thin
Reaction same old addiction
to militaries who rarely win
Empires’ machines sparkling
in patriots’ eyes callow
their fickle hearts darkling
while peace fades ever sallow
Steeped in deep ignorance
hooked on obsession
Haughty the arrogance
of blind aggression
Still on victimhood they’re insisting
in mulish denial persisting
Elites stir up the howling storm
amidst mellow middling calm
as their interest in us lukewarm
causes them not slightest qualm
Drawn in to empire’s slipstream
amidst paralyzing suction
Another gut-wrenching scheme
inescapable the ruction
As long as the elites aspire
us common people shall expire
The violence that the empire inflicts on the far reaches of the realm keeps returning home in ever fiercer vengeance, here a.k.a. ‘blowback’:
Empire forcing itself afar
implacably & scheming
Generals lust for that next star
Dark killing machines gleaming
Poor cultures obliterated
through mechanized pure evil
millions get ‘depopulated’
Now brings home the upheaval:
Empire has begun coming apart in whimper
Long overdue that its breezy smile turns simper!
Ending endless wars the sine qua non
for the reining in of the Pentagon
Still we’ll perish in climate collapse
part of the Sixth Mass Extinction
Even if changing as in time-lapse
won’t forestall Species’ eviction
We warred & consumed at our best
clinched Oblivion for the rest!
+)
-sine qua non = a prerequisite
-Sixth (Great) Mass Extinction = In the last half-billion years, life on Earth has been nearly wiped out five times. The planet is now entering the Sixth. Let’s give ourselves a strong hand!
-time-lapse = done by means of time-lapse photography
We keep suffering iniquity
by greedy ‘power elite’ blithe
Brutish plight predates antiquity
scythed powerless humans still writhe
Implacably each ‘people’s savior’
shall feel uniquely appointed
But let’s assess our own behavior:
We allow being exploited!
True change doesn’t somehow happen out there
but through risk filled action by ‘us’ here