Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Of rosy hued vigor drained
off course veered, dropped anchor
‘Just’ causes no longer feigned
subsided rush, rancor
Hearing himself he cringes
pompous in the arcane
Laboring on the fringes
struggling with the mundane
No longer plagued in the throes
of fables lastly shorn
About nothing much he crows
gray, worn – but not forlorn
Once young, when in Djibouti
Life Herself in the guise
of an enchanting beauty
gave him her deep well eyes
But she feigned not giving a hootie
when while blushing he praised her wrap
She pretended coy, cool & snooty
flustered, he could only tip his cap
Callow, thought he’d been rejected
so he told himself: retreat!
To a dive bar he defected
to nurse his awkward defeat
Under blistering sun in zenith
back later aboard his freighter
with in his sweltering bunk beneath
hangover on the equator
Once again hoists anchor his ship
such is life of the drunken sailor:
Off on another lonely trip
he sails away as his own jailer
+)
-Djibouti = a port on the southern entrance to the Red Sea
-freighter = cargo ship
Here’s a story that rocks
for persons with feet
who are wearing out socks
Here details replete:
Involves a old married couple
their romance erstwhile torrid
Neither bodies or minds supple
shuffling in socks un-florid
Socks not blown off any longer
but no surprise still worn through
spotted, when peeled off to launder
without alarm or ado
Her socks wear first at the toe
without an exception
while his heels the first to go
By clearest perception:
sock sorting thus infallible
merely check where’s found the hole
The couple’s union affable
in perfect sorting control
Watch the ephemeral waves
on oceans eternal
those wary warrior braves
their persistence vernal
Days raced in the froth of my youth
like driven waves, white capping
while now I’m a laggardly sleuth
usually caught napping
Am a poseur among knaves
a most tiresome recluse
one who cowers from the waves
gushing pretexts profuse
Flotsam on stormy ocean
oblivious, obtuse
swept in howling commotion
in existence abstruse
+)
-flotsam = floating wreckage
I did not become that leader of men
that mighty lion roaring in his den
Not pumped up enough my ego
or perhaps lacking gumption?
Feeling too stiff in tuxedo
or bothered by compunction?
Feeling guilty of indulging
while others ail & tumble?
Loath to proclaim with chest bulging
while trying to fake humble?
Too deficient a Philistine
to travel by limousine?
Too concerned with the unforeseen
bored with intrigues Byzantine?
Or perhaps, putz
just lacking guts?
Back then had seemed remote, unknown
would seem like fatuity
when up on to these shores tossed, blown
but since turned fortuity
By winds, were they happenstance
brought me in disaffect
On waves, were they circumstance
in life I was shipwrecked
Back then I was downed, almost drowned
Since then blessed on dry steady ground
+)
these shores = here: the US Pacific Northwest
Having found Gothenburg pedantic
I had since childhood quested West
hence peered over the edge of my nest
on to horizons romantic
Clearly I inclined to manic
so sailed off to The New World
but turned no trip Magellanic
merely cruised in restless whirl
Stranger in Reality
so when I did arrive somewhere
never in finality
rarely found a tangible ‘here’
‘Far away’ may not endow
this I can sadly avow
+)
Gothenburg = the major port & industrial city on the Swedish West coast
Now my life (on whose behest?)
is wantonly waning
am adrift, feeling bereft
of what joy remaining
On many days flatly harrowed
unmeritoriously
up paths steep & ever narrowed
shuffling laboriously
Led a life inglorious
deftly dissipative
Even found notorious
as opinionative
Every regret’s ember
glows intractably
dooms us to remember
all implacably
Untamed thoughts glowering
in profanity
fanning wild flames, scouring
our past anomie
Still youth’s memories torrential
of innocent revelry
wondrous blessings existential
replays in warm reverie
on checking your mirror
that whistles blew, bells would chime
seeing yourself clearer?
That in reflection
on inspection
saw not perfection
or affection?
Mere mediocrity, schmuck!
Rarely reached, often worse:
Barely scraping by in luck
until pulls up the hearse.
(+)
schmuck = (Yiddish) a jerk