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We rush each new day into the same old fray

We’re jumping into the fray
to injure, use up, jaw
As dawns yet another day
we elbow, step on, claw

One more eight billion people raid
bodies bouncing, minds racing
joy, beauty & sanity fade
never mind what we’re facing:

Species die, forests crumble
all brought down way too fast
Glaciers melt, earthquakes rumble
How long can humans last?

Even so we claim this assault
(as we primp for each next day)
is “no way our doing or fault
so let’s get back in the fray!”

+)
-eight billion = here: the planet’s approx human population

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Spare me the natter over hors d’oeuvres platter

Fumbling yet another glass
over hors d’oeuvre platter
spouting platitudes in mass
Spare me such void natter!

Such vain, self absorbed rattle
in verbiage feckless
midst milling about cattle
dressed in tie & necklace

Voices shrill, blaring
breathlessly ‘reporting’
onslaught unsparing
conversation-thwarting

How did we turn admass?
Why so untoward
when a subject impasse
brings silence awkward?

Time’s up, we may leave
just smile & swoon
Hardly cause to grieve
bye, until soon!

+)
-‘reporting’ = here: boorishly droning on about one’s own most mundane doings

 

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Self-entitlement’s fangs bared

Agony fills our bones
while minds racing, our guts churn
like crawling on coarse stones
For change our heavy hearts yearn

Social bonds no longer prized
irreparably frayed
Everything commoditized
trust & manners decayed

In Empire’s Wars & Celeb Cultures
self-entitlement’s fierce fangs bared
turning us into whiny vultures
Only poverty deeply shared

Little of wisdom debated
or of shared humanity
Neighborhoods fearfully gated
in self absorbed vanity

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Brash opinions know not stage fright

Hoping against hope: Save my poor ear
not another repetition!
For who among us do care to hear
such runaway feeble fission?

Garrulity gone meteoric
in hapless nation dysphoric
while the gushing foamy rhetoric
soars in distortions historic

Brash opinions know not stage fright
or usefulness of sound bite
in election spectacle’s blight
accentuates all what’s trite

Those who opine show no contrition
for their spewing words pernicious
or for the lack of inhibition
on narrow paths injudicious

edited 12/04/21 1635

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On Cruise of Illusion

M/V ‘America’ slipped its mooring
now tossing like a cork on roughest sea
Crew, brainwashed, chants: “Sea calm like flooring
we’re no sailor serfs but well fed & free”!

All but entertainment is a bore
so grant us bantering & glee
by those who us gullible adore:
The Celebs we so pine to be

But hold the laughs! Check the ship’s wake
the helmsman doesn’t know sailing
wake looks like a slithering snake
In bilges no one bailing

A nation on a cruise of illusion
course plotted by a Seasick Master
immune to Reality intrusion.
Just below horizon: Disaster!

Safe on the upper deck
proclaims The Power Elite:
“So what if looms a wreck
we own the whole lifeboat fleet!”

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Wings feebly flapping, in armchairs flopping

Once perhaps eagles, now wobbly geese
ages passed since we looked strapping
Now spectators of silly & sleaze
in armchairs flopping, tongues flapping

In our sugar & fat fueled rut
guzzling, chomping fast food junk
outwards bulges that beach ball gut
no bounce left for cheery spunk

Not letting inequality
or climate calamity
spoil our fun & frivolity!
Busy on screens, can’t you see?

Rather ‘amusing ourselves to death’
than fighting for working democracy
we’re consuming, wheezing out of breath
in willful ignorant hypocrisy

+)
‘Amusing ourselves to death’ = (1985) book title by Neil Postman

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A life un-examined

Socrates suggested that “the un-examined life is not worth living.” That was then, and it still ain’t. And here is how now:

She: “Recently been thinking a little about the Meaning of Life …”
He: “Honey, why we don’t we google it?”

Boundless affinity for distraction
in vain attempts to handle it all
knee jerks to superficial attraction
one click away or found at the mall

But to lessen Life’s steady pains
must we not all squarely face
how helplessly our vigor drains
caught in Reckoning’s stern gaze?

while our lives us increasingly perplex
by hi-tech growing evermore complex

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Swam only where shallow

By diffidence tormented
midst misgivings flurried
Absence of peace lamented
for own comfort worried

In life he turned ‘marshmallowed’
swam only where shallow
In cowardice had wallowed
thus aged while still callow

While guilty of many a faux pas
so at least he doesn’t expect applause

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Online joy fades dysphoric

Set upon by darkening squall
in deep, murky waters we trawl

Keyboards clatteringly tapped
without effort or strain
Human memory lapped, gapped
does save time, while lulls brain

By smart devices electronic
bodies slumping catatonic
Instant searches counter-mnemonic
in tasks often histrionic:

Netting but victories Pyrrhic
as online joy fades dysphoric

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Creating our own mirthless mess

Each moment in its brevity
mere blip imperceptible
no doubt throughout eternity
flashes insusceptible

In mechanical traverse
circling on lonesome trek
in apparent Universe
planet Earth just a speck

Nonetheless could’ve proved ample
if we wouldn’t rush & trample

but instead us fleeting flecks
messy guests soon Earth-less
us humans of modest specs
create own mess mirthless