Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
At those pedestrian crossings striped
cantankerous drivers of ‘tanks’
impatiently stopped, while sometimes griped
about walkers’ deficient thanks
Obsequious must be walkers may
it’s in U.S culture, of course
prevailing attitude holding sway:
Need respect only size & force!
Thus most backward to yield
when we are the large-wheeled
+)
‘tanks’ = here: ever larger cars, SUVs et al
How not to cringe
at ‘lawmakers’ fringed
How Tories binge
in fantasy hinged
In their bungling chorus
some still spound like Boris!
+)
Boris Johnson: the former UK prime minister
Lands in Hesperia
from Bavaria
gripped by hysteria
to Bay Area
Blinded by hypocrisy
deluded we’ve democracy
while owned by plutocracy
we’re ruled by kakistocracy
We’re out of touch with reality
thinking somehow we’re praiseworthy
basking in bubbling hyperbole
telling others they’re blameworthy
In the ‘shining city on the hill’
conceited we carry on at will!
+)
-Bay Area: San Francisco Bay, CA
-Hesperia: Literally “western land”, a term applied by Ancient Greeks to Italy and by Romans to the Iberian Peninsula and Beyond (i.e. America albeit undiscovered)
-kakistocracy = government run by the vile & worst, least qualified and most unscrupulous people (Greek kakistos: worst)
-shining city: “America is, and always will be, a shining city on a hill.” ― Ronald Reagan
‘Drab, aggressive’ Russia
steeped deep in ‘misbehavior’
Pugnacious like Prussia
claims Democracy’s Saviors
It’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 the arms
Russia needs a thorough spanking
Let’s boldly sanction its banking!
+)
The grass may be thought greener
on the other side of the fence
but if its dog barks meaner
would climbing over make good sense?
Wouldn’t we more appreciate our present
by trying make it egalitarian
so all people could live safe & content
– not just the elites authoritarian
who tells us: Stop the flirtation
get yourselves back in formation!
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
While proven wrong
myths been cemented
by now since long
turned minds demented
Fantasies sweet-sented
in hapless hyperbole
excuses invented
passed off as reality
In exceptionalism secluded
by ignorance & fear deluded
From their luxurious dreamboats
‘calm!’ commands they’re unheeding
elites scramble for the lifeboats
trampling us while stampeding
The elites perform by stealth
elsewhere they’ll disembark
with their self-entitled wealth
as per ‘me first’ hallmark
Those cold-hearted ‘point one percent’ flee first
for solidarity they have no thirst