Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
The day in nature dawns quietly, gently and unhurriedly. The day in the consumer world is impatiently forced open like a screechy metal sliding door on to the storefront that we have allowed society to become:
Screeching cacophony
just noise & rattle
profane, nothing holy
impatient prattle
But then ain’t our span of attention
as short as is long our pretension?
Winter now fading flotsam
lost in tenebrous wake
while the Spring’s tender blossom
bursting fully awake
Dancing blinding sun rays
reflections oblique
among brief showers race
playing hide & seek
In streets trees stretch their eaves
blows a gentle tepid breeze
through giddy tender leaves
like sound of slipping chemise
To roll through cherry blossom portal
brims the heart of this rhyming mortal
Are we placed here to get along
to act with sincerity
to stand up against what is wrong
in strong solidarity?
If put on earth to share
how are we doing?
If put on earth to care
how is it going?
Rather elbows sharp
mostly me first?
Do we harp & carp
gripes, grudges nursed?
We seem stuck estranged
Since when? No mystery
for not much has changed
believe our history:
Humans hardly humane
as far as species
We grab, lie, cheat & feign
& drain like leeches
Expect a sunburnt smile
with white teeth gleaming
in any market isle
in trendy streaming
Spouting catchy metaphors
in tilting lilting idiom
Driving cool wheeled dinosaurs
in bumper to bumper ‘freedom’
Headed for the erstwhile Golden West
on to land abundantly blessed
in irresistibly upbeat quest
Too late, turned crowded, worn out, stressed
In unrelenting motion
have been pumping most of its oil
polluting air & ocean
depleted the bountiful soil
Time to wake up from faded dreams:
It’s getting ever hotter
fires blaze on hills & in ravines
rivers, lakes drained of water
We’re culprits of reckless squander
stared down by unblinking drought
Wake up from fantasy’s wonder:
Face it. No way, none but out
Days gone when LAid back seemed easy
brimming with optimism breezy
+)
LAid back = laid back as in LA
edited 10/14/23 1345
Deep dark rueful shadows
lit in hued moon light
edge silvery meadows
of metallic bright
Shine unperturbed bright stars
beyond Earth’s cold skies
Way beyond Moon and Mars
hide unanswered ‘whys’
In morning’s early light
shadows turn shallow, skies warmed
Forthwith, wake up, hold tight!
Awe for the Earthly returned:
Fades away night’s perfect stillness
elbowed by day’s messy shrillness
One seeming seamless mall
with roars ‘cariphonia’
and merchandising gall
Of this consists its essence:
Ever fleeting new thrills!
Where to escape its presence?
High up in dusty hills!
The clear-eyed who wisely topangued
won’t so easily be harangued
+)
-‘cariphonia’ = the sound of cars in heavy traffic
-topangued = to move up in the hills of Topanga, away from LA
Beware of ads offering ‘free’ gifts
by busty ‘babes’ with rosy cheeks
Beware too that those composing gifs
might be high-tech chattering geeks
Beware of the neighbor’s dog
as well as of all rifts
Beware of much too strong grog
and those drunks draining fifths
Best always to stay aware
that Human Life doesn’t play fair
Car alarm going off
lights brightly flashin’
An electronic cough
in throbbing passion
Keeps us awake all night nearly
by pained wailing protraction
A system that cavalierly
advertises ‘protection’
Pounding our poor hearing
Will it not disarm?
Sure but, persevering
can’t wait to rearm
The sibilant sound of the ripe apple falling off the trees are amplified in the perfect stillness of our homestead at Anten:
Sweet apples in their ripe prime
nature’s rites elegant
Summer brings on its show time:
Hark, plunges eloquent!
When weighed down by their sap
apples’ tender stems snap
They drop in sound sibilant
flight path most fleetingly
in wind stirred up jubilant
by apple subtlety
Amidst silence distinctly
a falling apple’s thud
shall be echoed succinctly
even on grass or mud
Every Summer’s wondrous story
no event purely perchance
but of perfect trajectory
part of nature’s flawless dance
+)
-Anten = a small community by the lake with the same name near Alingsås
I nominate as emblematic
while Flora & Fauna glower
of Society symptomatic:
The ubiquitous Leaf Blower
Its credentials are compelling:
* Viciously vociferous
* Dust stirring jet, fetid smelling
* Exhaust carboniferous
Factually there’s no disputing
it’s to Nature quite abusive
being so profusely polluting
and to Neighborhoods intrusive
It replaces rasping raking
of erstwhile such enjoyment
and while by ‘techno fix’ faking
it creates unemployment
Its shortsightedness enigmatic
does not provide a solution
Of our carelessness symptomatic
just shifts dirt in winked collusion!
So by pretense are we then absolved
though the core issues remain unsolved?