When the times feel overweening
we are promptly convening
us powerless, start house cleaning
Way to make sense, find meaning?
But to scrub off of common surface grime
way easier than power elite’s slime
How shrillness electronic made stillness anachronic
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?
Past of humanity stifling by inanity
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
So what if the grass is greener if the dog there is meaner?
The grass may be thought greener
on the other side of the fence
but if its dog barks meaner
would climbing over make good sense?
Wouldn’t we more appreciate our present
by trying make it egalitarian
so all people could live safe & content
– not just the elites authoritarian
who tells us: Stop the flirtation
get yourselves back in formation!
The ‘blank check’ lenience we allow for our own convenience
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?
Not sticking around that itinerant clown
After settles the sawdust
found himself again nonplussed
As an itinerant clown
why should he be relied upon
to still be sticking around
after the circus is long gone?
If notably the after-sensation
turned out to be humiliation?
Myths cemented in minds demented
While proven wrong
myths been cemented
by now since long
turned minds demented
Fantasies sweet sented
in hapless hyperbole
excuses invented
passed off as reality
In exceptionalism denuded
by ignorance & fear deluded
They’re stampeding, commands of ‘calm!’ unheeding
From their luxurious dreamboats
‘calm!’ commands they’re unheeding
elites scramble for the lifeboats
trampling us while stampeding
The elites perform by stealth
elsewhere they’ll disembark
with their self-entitled wealth
as per ‘me first’ hallmark
Those cold-hearted ‘point one percent’ flee first
for solidarity they have no thirst
Indulging what’s distracting as finding most else exacting?
Let’s try stay on subject
be it with a meek ho-hum
before we just defect
wandering off in humdrum
Like some clueless critter
swept up in the fray
helpless, lost in flitter
can’t suppress our bray
Do we indulge in what is distracting
as we’re finding most else too exacting?
When weakens solidarity, then widens polarity
Mass media propagandistic
in a nation feudalistic
exaggerates threats terroristic
make us serfs cheer jingoistic
While deeply stirred by populism
we’re held back by cynicism
mightily fearing socialism
truly preferring tourism
When sacking solidarity
we live in barbarity
in punishing polarity
dispatched to disparity
Our cheers ring out chauvinistic
that’s amongst us nativistic