Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Relished the smooth ride home from the shop
trip home with steep hills seems just a hop:
Crystal crisp the shifting
Crankset, gears ticking
Handlebars uplifting
No foreign clicking
Tires whirl p.s.i. correct
hum of the well-oiled chain
Seating position perfect
I glide in the arcane
Wheels well spoked
tightly drawn
Pedals stoked
by brash brawn
All this combine to sweetly
boost the ride home most fleetly
I’ve arrived at a stage
when finding most ‘news’ canard
of small use at my age
being somewhat a blowhard
What merely simulates
no longer stimulates
The wide world no longer
entices with what’s out there
While pulsating stronger
my heart & mind both right here
Staying calm around home, so far unbarred
while feeling wayward beyond my backyard
There exists no stronger fealty
in our late stage capitalism
than for example to realty
as entitled opportunism
Lost in stock market goosery
watching transactions careen
Splashing awash in usury
indulging profits obscene
By justification spurious
while to multitudes injurious
As the morning dawns
a next day announcing
We’re ready, poor pawns
for another trouncing
But when I get myself versed
there’s air under my wings
Not ensnared, slogging cursed
among prosaic things
Lightens the day’s burden in trade-off
when starts off with a rhyming take-off
+)
well versed = here: able to write a fair verse
A people’s contention
elite harshly circumscribes
by sternest convention
to inhibit ‘diatribes’
Power elite unsightly
never brooks true order:
We must submit contritely
to their own disorder
The elite bombards us with dubiety
pretending they’re acting with propriety
Sure we have our druthers
so let’s disaffect:
Who cares about others
why be circumspect?
No need genuflect
steel yourself brash
Ignore self-respect
live life slapdash!
Don’t any attempts to be kind
end up putting us in a bind?
Aren’t we under the illusion
that we’re running our own show
carried on with much effusion
presuming only we know?
We’re sitting in the cockpit
but not at the controls!
So best forget about it
there exist no loopholes
Us humans eagerly claim to have a ‘free will’
while getting nowhere on Universe’s treadmill
There’s diminishing return
of consumer technology
such as not enough concern
how it bashes ecology
Still its shares go eruptive
moving rapidly to the fore
glorified as ‘disruptive’
forcing others to close their door
Of what merit ‘automation’
when leaves many unemployed?
Of what value ‘innovation’
when communities destroyed?
So why then do we heed the prophets
who create havoc most for profits?!
+)
-disruptive = here: new technology or business models that put others out business; currently used as a term of gushing admiration without voicing much concern of social justice, jobs etc
At this closing stage of Life
I’ve come to realize
it all turned too rife with strife
but need to emphasize
until this time
I’d been distracted
Had seemed just ‘fine’
barely impacted
Following such insight
denial was history
Chastened, I’ll be all right
embracing Life’s mystery!
no longer can I continue to flout
that distraction but fleetingly works out
There’s no denying
ain’t about ‘what’ I write
when versifying
but ‘how’ I transcend plight
If thought of at all I’ll be judged
not by my strophes of verse
or whether some rhymes crisp or smudged
but how I faced the adverse
Easy to smile when life seems child’s play
a lot harder when hope spins astray