Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Does it succeed the strategy
to seek bliss in ignorance
with heads in clouds of fantasy
dreaming of deliverance?
As we’re mired in mortality
must not our flesh & bone feet
stand firmly in reality
on coarse earthiness concrete?
So when Life glares
endure its stares!
Below the cold pale moon
out in space unknown
on planet trashed, junk strewn
easy feel alone
Then sky gets swept clean
by morning bright
and stars’ dimming sheen
yield to sunlight:
Stands up, as the night stands down:
The ‘Nation Indispensable’:
Empire with red, white, blue frown
violent, reprehensible
To dominate the Globe in disquietude
while She slides unbeknownst to decrepitude
Images of their lives short & wretched
then slaughter’s horror for animals
indelible impressions sizzle etched
From where springs our human animus?
Aren’t we bereft of compassion
raising them as mere food ration?
Clearly meat eating replete
with daily cruelty?
Mustn’t chewing ‘factory meat’
place hearts in truancy?
Which goes for swilling dairy
if on human behalf
should we not all be wary
unless a nursing calf?
“But we like meat & dairy!” Good grief!
Won’t you grasp animals aren’t our beef?
Instead thrive on flowing wheat
lustrous, delectable
and the fresh & brimming sweet
fruit & vegetable!
The Philistine not only ignores all conditions of life which are not his own but also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existence after his own.” – Goethe.
Straight faced the Philistine advises:
“Won’t stick my neck in guillotine!”
Instead he declares, no surprises:
“Like my butt in a limousine!”
No use for intrigues Byzantine
or time for Sistine Chapel
(or the fifteen or seventeen)
Prefers fries to an apple
As always by strong insistence
he brooks no interference
Perplexing perverse persistence
in painful perseverance
He’s always certain
though rarely right
How thick his curtain
and drawn too tight!
Day dawns in anticipation
morning opens up ‘wide screen’
There’s fleeting exhilaration
as off to work we careen
But soon fades the day in routine
stuck on the corporate track
where indignity and caffeine
afford little joy or slack
If at the day’s end we’re found drained, filled with misgiving
shall we still be counted among the truly living?
Our Species’ great distinction
is to precipitate
the Sixth Great Mass Extinction
which just won’t mitigate
It’s been portending
trending since long
Soon it’ll be ending
horridly wrong
Here is what it shall entail
no mere innuendo:
‘going out of business’ sale
in screeching crescendo
Whether found untoward
still Apocalypse
in climatic discord
Then Necropolis
In the final crunch
we’ll be checking plugs, cords
(cluelessly lack hunch)
in vain pounding keyboards
Amidst the climate collapse
all left is to implore
in a last breath bugling taps:
“It used to work before!”
+)
-Sixth great mass extinction = The planet has gone through five ‘great mass extinctions’ over the past some 440 million years, each of which is thought to have annihilated anywhere from 50 to 95 percent of all species on the planet. We are now well into
Try to dream with flowers
let them be it all
filling the dark small hours
staunch in rustling squall
Silently thunderous
by winds blown lustrous
frugal while generous
flowers grow wondrous
When our life glowers
try dream with flowers
Does goods shown with perky snappiness
by such breathless marketing fanned
bring but material happiness
fulfillment in Consumer Land …
… while Peace of Mind ever vernal
must unceasingly be yearned
grasped fleetingly, though eternal
cannot be bought, might be earned
Senseless then if out shopping sheepishly
as the true price thereof piles steepishly?
Here the expression of ‘cry uncle’ becomes ‘cry ankle’. Experienced after long days of sightseeing on foot in e.g. a major tourism city.
Our knees
both screech
Oy vey! oy vey! oy vey!
as feet ‘cry ankle’
Dawns yet another day
regrets shall rankle
But why dwell in an existence
where the major absorbing locus
is on bodily persistence?
Where’s the intellectual focus?
But until found ain’t it sadly obvious
that of such we just had not the foggiest
+)
-oy vey! = (Yiddish) expression of dismay or hurt
Twisted like acrobatic acts
to engineer outcomes perverted
opinions offered up as facts
then glibly, haughtily asserted
On recklessness binged
in forward pose
pours on claims unhinged
anything goes!
These days seem veracity
as well as morality
eclipsed by mendacity
in foam bath banality
In times erstwhile weren’t we restrained
by facts as being impregnable?
Perhaps too old to be retrained
for when few norms are detectable
Now floating away dazzled
from Reality’s shores
we’re too creaky & frazzled
to keep pulling the oars
Thus on waves of distraction we’re drifting
when did we last do something uplifting?
+)
facts = “Factual evidence, since it is an impediment to what we desire, is banished” – Chris Hedges
edited 08/15/24 1730