Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Poems in English
Wondrous solace of stillness
eludes us without fail
when electronic shrillness
pierces through nature’s veil
Might one of those clueless clods
(who with such hapless abandon
plugs in their stylish ear pods)
find for Net surfing a stand-in?
How without stillness & solitude
shall we re-connect with rectitude?
My own life’s trifling past
as part of Humanity
as well (in case you asked)
stifling by inanity
Ain’t reassuring
of what shall come next:
Misery enduring
and no mere pretext
Stuck in the now I remain vexed
trying hide myself from what’s next
Years rushing by her
without slowdown
faster & faster
goes the countdown
Even without disaster
life is the hard taskmaster
So why live in blurred hurry
when to live well in the moment
with its own joy & worry
provides life’s inmost bestowment?
Sam, a 17 y.o. grandson, did a ‘hat trick’:
There was this footballer named Sam
who swiftly went bam, bam & bam
All without a hair out place
what a cool, good looking ace
Poor goalie could not do a damn
+)
hat trick = scoring three goals in one match
Synapses corroding
recall slowed, deferred
Memories eroding
erstwhile visions blurred
Outlook & attitude askew
injustices bewailing
Anything new brings much ado
as trains of thought derailing
Outfits, gadgets turned outmoded
Sentences humorously misheard
He grieves old manners imploded
since human folly reached the absurd
An Octogenarian
grumbling with fumbling hands
Curmudgeon contrarian
long gone grandiose plans
Now marching out of step, on course chaotic
his collar frayed, smartphone-less, quite quixotic
Others’ proclivity
for shameless self-pride
and dull naivety
keep get things cockeyed
So you, know-it-all minion,
won’t let any verified fact
influence your opinion
or allow fairness to detract
Can’t undertake introspection
when howling strong in projection
+)
projection = (psychiatry) a defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else
How happily I’m hounded
by persistent a muse
so gratefully astounded
enthusing out the blues
Am a tree happily barked up
by inspiration infused
It’s brimming over my cracked cup
foamy verbiage suffused
Verses may be pathetic
in pace peripatetic
The language mere cosmetic
both opaque & bathetic
Delivery homiletic
its effect anesthetic
While response found apathetic
why be apologetic?
Very few poets a Byron
or Shakespeare or Neruda
Very few women a siren
and few gurus a Buddha
So what? Won’t us short on talent
at least attempt to be gallant?
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