Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
A sole overstayed rose
shivered but far from jaded
imagine how she froze
in Winter’s bleakness faded
All comfort she’d spurned
no longer warmed or fed
How for Spring she yearned
though by then she’d be dead
While this story tragic
shows that anticipation
might well offer magic
short of participation
Quite hard to be judicious
about what’s inauspicious
At night the Past keeps appearing
would it only just leave me alone
but it keeps up grinning, leering
ensuring I can never atone
Its attacks mortifying
pounding unforgiving, searing
Might they be edifying
were I humble & god-fearing?
But what if merely random images
of my youth’s many hard lost scrimmages?
Who can truly believe
something so chilling
that humans can’t aggrieve
unless God’s willing?
Still not even Gods
could create the same mess
as us humans clods
with more to come, safe guess
So when then collapse gets reprised
whom among us may claim surprised?
+)
-aggrieve = to afflict with pain, anxiety, etc; to oppress or wrong grievously; injure by injustice
-reprise = to execute a repetition of; repeat
Claiming peace of mind in ‘any’ place
such silly presumptive prattle
Sure, in cities blessed by luck or grace
be they Stockholm or Seattle
Quite another kettle of fish, uh
if in Gaza or Mogandishu?
Now’s the time to be strong minded
While the past always matters
when by flashbacks am reminded
I mustn’t drown as it splatters
Rather stretch to my boldest stance
in each new moment’s fraction
am offered yet another chance
with short time frame for action
as resolve tends to fade too fast
never known to loiter & last
She finds nothing so minute
that it shall not require
a response as if acute
like if it’s all afire
Yet again our poor wretch
keeps up her agitating
in most bountiful kvetch
that just knows not abating
As she feels powerless not to emote
right away to the non-urgent footnote
Written after just returning from a visit to my country of birth
From a privileged voyage
over distance, in senescence
amidst confounding buoyage
sliding back in to quiescence
Took from fantasy’s cup a sip
now back from yet another trip
‘Lack time’, we lament
but distinctions get lost
when much time misspent
searching for lowest cost
It’s such sad inertia silly
by choosy Ace Consumer
descendant from Ancient Philly
lacking vision & humor
They keep chasing all hell bent
just can’t slow, pause or relent!
+)
Ancient Philly = the area of Philistia. These days a ‘philistine’ is a person who not only ignores all conditions of life which are not her own but also demands that the rest of humankind should fashion its mode of existence after her own
“It didn’t take long for researchers examining the tiny sea snails to see something amiss. The surface of some of their thin outer shells looked as if they had been etched by a solvent. Others were deeply pitted and pocked. These translucent sea butterflies known as pteropods, which provide food for salmon, herring and other fish, hadn’t been burned in some horrific lab accident. They were being eaten away by the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have documented that souring seas caused by carbon dioxide emissions are dissolving pteropods in the wild right now along the U.S. West Coast. That is damaging a potentially important link in the marine food web far sooner than expected.”
– Seattle Times, April, 2014:
http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2014/apr/30/pteropod-shells-dissolving
As long as us humans are ‘evolving’
so what if other ones are dissolving?
Generational abdication
by humans turned the crisp ocean
through acute acidification
into soup of toxic potion
The mollusk pteropod
in translucent shell
now by CO2 flawed
Chimes food chain’s death knell
No longer just a notion
effects ubiquitous
No longer mere slow motion
collapse precipitous
By humans running roughshod
the shells now pocked, softened
of the hapless Gastropod
Grandkids’ future coffined
By killing the pteropod
we’re denying Pterogod
+)
-gastropod = mollusk comprising the snails, whelks, slugs, etc.
-mollusk = a large group of animals (such as snails and clams) twho live in a shell
-pteropod = a small mollusk with winglike extensions for swimming
-‘Pterogod’ = (by license) that of God in Everyone and Everything
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