Ages since in my prime
and still striving to buck up
am racing against time
to turn into a grownup
While prospects for growth by now slimmer
still flickers hope in blurry glimmer
A means, not an end
Money a means of transaction
while speculating, profits piling
can bring fleeting satisfaction
that easily becomes beguiling
Don’t worship at financial success shrine
spend money for people’s well being
Pursue not the maximized bottom line
whilst of fairness, justice unseeing
A flat out pace pecuniary
seldom settles well salutary
In life’s sunset most tranquil my mindset
Enjoyed youth’s wits
Then in my senescence
wits called itself quits
Such now my quintessence:
Been left but with whits
showing up in mere fits
now unmoved by glitz
ain’t moping in the pits
Now dwell in my life’s sunset
in most tranquil a mindset
+)
whit = a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
Trying look taller but coming up short
“Has been a stretch
all in vain”
stated the wretch
when tried feign:
Been straightening his back
but then he walks like strutting
although “you’re too short” flak
does at times feel off-putting
Still what if in a next Life and all
he’ll grow gangling as Charles de Gaulle?
Thus he fears as well rebirth too tall
so best try enjoy short & small?
As well in the struggle to be resolute
isn’t he also coming up short? Absolute!
Verse uplifting, up-shifting
A verse epigrammatic
steadily up-shifting
blows like wind anabatic
must ascend uplifting
Then abating in the punchline
prior narrative to untwine
On the Internet ceaselessly beset
But perhaps there’s no etiquette
(short of foulest epithet)
on the intrepid Internet
where we’re ceaselessly beset?
Please don’t shove your smartphone
so thoughtlessly in my face!
You tech-dazed, prompted clone
give me some space, show some grace!
But be it naive futility
to expect any civility?
Heartstrings of harp
On the passing of a friend
While of Life’s harshness wary
convivial our Mary
Her heartstrings of harp
her mind saber sharp
Met many like her? Nary!
Trying not to offer opinions unprompted!
Who would unprompted share
one’s fact-grounded opinions
let heart & mind laid bare
to cliché-spouting minions?
Would that not be to squander
what is for each quintessential
in a frivolous yonder
tangential to life essential?
Unless someone appears sincerely to ask
might we not prefer in a limelight to bask
… but will we lead a worthwhile life?
If we want to get along
mouth only the mundane
and if we want to belong
stray not in the arcane!
Let others spout their opinion
and just pretend to listen
Act the sycophantic minion
smile, best if our eyes glisten
Avoid these words to get along:
‘ascetic’ & ‘poetic’
Apply in order to belong:
‘athletic’ & ‘cosmetic’
Voice only the prosaic
like ‘we get warm by burning coal’
avoid ‘photovoltaic’
Above all do not bare our soul!
Thus we’ll evade some risk & strife
but will we lead a worthwhile life?
Leave Topanga!
This verse was first written in 2018 for my son Matt, who was then living through droughts & wildfires in Topanga, amidst the marked decline of the United States. In 2020 Matt moved to Sweden, where his father is from.
Trust in your guts & brains
take your leave from Topanga
find a ‘sane’ place with rains
but don’t retrace to Tonga
as The Islands getting hotter
long since Garden of Eden
not long until under water
While you’re welcome in Sweden
Faint prescience is all it takes
plus aptitude for a new language
So why wait to pull up the stakes
why wallow in anomie anguish?
+)
-Tonga = a South Pacific island nation, to where Matt’s great grandparents emigrated (from Sweden before WW1 and where his grandfather spent his childhood
-Topanga, CA = just outside Los Angeles