Still trying to buck up
Ages since in my prime
and still striving to buck up
am racing against time
to turn into a grownup
While prospects for growth by now slimmer
still flickers hope in blurry glimmer
Humanity’s girth too ample for poor Earth
Earth’s oceans asphyxiated
planet terminally polluted
wearing out dilapidated
Human Race for poor Earth ill-suited
Wars rage without ceasefires
Farmland parched from drought
ever raging wildfires
gaining heightened clout
Bridges fall, deep potholes
oceans continue to rise
ice melts from heating poles
still doesn’t seem to make us wise?
But hey, can’t you see we’re busy
by high-tech haplessly dizzy!
Adulation or hate, rarely now conversation
Political meltdown
Neo-fascist coup
by brashest clown
and well armed crew
In celeb adulation
incessantly we prate
rarely now conversation
but clichés hurled in hate
Occurs not by chance inequality
but by wilful sinister polity
Life of its Essence we’ve wrung
Watch our contrived smiles beaming
flooding the feigned community
see our well-brushed teeth gleaming
All relished with impunity
With entitled importunity
we’re elbowing in fake freedom
for abundant opportunity
like found in erstwhile Yankeedom
While life’s very essence seems since been wrung
what we now stand for may thus be unsung
A means, not an end
Money a means of transaction
while speculating, profits piling
can bring fleeting satisfaction
that easily becomes beguiling
Don’t worship at financial success shrine
spend money for people’s well being
Pursue not the maximized bottom line
whilst of fairness, justice unseeing
A flat out pace pecuniary
seldom settles well salutary
In life’s sunset most tranquil my mindset
Enjoyed youth’s wits
Then in my senescence
wits called itself quits
Such now my quintessence:
Been left but with whits
showing up in mere fits
now unmoved by glitz
ain’t moping in the pits
Now dwell in my life’s sunset
in most tranquil a mindset
+)
whit = a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
Trying look taller but coming up short
“Has been a stretch
all in vain”
stated the wretch
when tried feign:
Been straightening his back
but then he walks like strutting
although “you’re too short” flak
does at times feel off-putting
Still what if in a next Life and all
he’ll grow gangling as Charles de Gaulle?
Thus he fears as well rebirth too tall
so best try enjoy short & small?
As well in the struggle to be resolute
isn’t he also coming up short? Absolute!
Verse uplifting, up-shifting
A verse epigrammatic
steadily up-shifting
blows like wind anabatic
must ascend uplifting
Then abating in the punchline
prior narrative to untwine
On the Internet ceaselessly beset
But perhaps there’s no etiquette
(short of foulest epithet)
on the intrepid Internet
where we’re ceaselessly beset?
Please don’t shove your smartphone
so thoughtlessly in my face!
You tech-dazed, prompted clone
give me some space, show some grace!
But be it naive futility
to expect any civility?
Right wingers march in neo-heimat
breathe out air & thought pollution
To ignore the collapsing climate
appears their preferred ‘solution’
How shall this mess, surely soon, end
as false cheers drag us in abjection?
Pernicious threats makes deadly blend
in consumer dreams, wide selection:
Wars been raging without ceasefires
as do now global floods, wildfires
Nations lacking sense to back down
prance at very edge of nuclear war
they war game ‘limited’ showdown
while ‘suitcase bombs’ may blast through backdoor
Too close to the edge we totter
in political meltdown
by the self-styled ‘genius’ plotter
revealed himself vile a clown
Economy precariously
fumbles while greed’s ruthless prophets
on Wall Street most nefariously
amass usurious profits
Enabled by our own inanity
we’re perishing amidst insanity!
+)
‘genius’ plotter = Trump