Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Images careening off keel
out-of-breath pitches twisted
in frenzied & frantic appeal
Any restraint resisted
Our attention usurped, wrested
in hugely bumped up gumption
Their vapid claims unattested
brought on in slick presumption
These ads of billions of dollars
bring neither rhyme or reason
just keep pouncing in crisp colors
Dance or consumer treason!
When speech & image
vile, while opaque
still pounce & scrimmage:
Time to awake!
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H.L. Mencken
If Mencken is right then democracy has by now been perfected in the U.S., thus:
Screen-augmented monomania
White House megalomania
Crass corporate kleptomania
Pervasive mythomania
Narratives declarative
the abnormal dressed up formal
while outright imperative:
Such is the glassy ‘new normal’
Swallowed in mindless frivolity
amidst decaying life quality
Once we begin to label
people, situations
they’ll turn simplistic fable
drawing allegations
An opinion in a blink
demands our chiding or sainting
without bothering to think
could prove indelibly tainting
‘Evil’ found irreversible
seen as beyond redemption
while ‘Good’ always traversable
fragrant without exemption
But at times don’t ‘good’ people seem buffoonish
while ‘evil’ people benignly cartoonish?
That citizens sleep on sidewalks
engenders but little compassion
while belligerent China hawks
are in exceptionalist fashion
To send our young crisply uniformed
endowed by ‘defense’ budget bloat
amidst cheers by public uninformed
to sally beyond our own moat
Billions squandered sparring in the South China Sea
by a ‘civilized’ nation … how can it still be?!
From inconvenience
(as we lack calm resilience)
do grant us lenience!
Let’s rely on own brilliance!
Amidst all impertinent tasks
we’re joined strong in resistance
to those ‘steam up my glasses’ masks
and keeping 6 ft distance!
Those demands imposed on us like blitzkrieg!
Honor our fatigue! Unfair the intrigue!
Getting to take the backseat
on a vehicle of success
ain’t lounging in a box seat
or being gifted some largesse
The Poor do slide off the pillion
when Elite does a wheelie
who ‘earn’ yet another billion
throttling entitled, freely
The Power Elite
who rarely feels contrite
expresses its conceit:
“The Poor should’ve held on tight!”
As The Poor fall off on Life’s ride
the Elite takes it in their stride
+)
-pillion = here: a small cushion-like passenger seat of a motorbike
Political meltdown
Neo-fascist coup
by brashest clown
and well armed crew
In celeb adulation
incessantly we prate
rarely now conversation
but clichés hurled in hate
Occurs not by chance inequality
but by wilful sinister polity
Letting ourselves be distracted
blind to fallout, while all hellbent on
lame entertainment protracted
Real threats scorned, barely acted upon
Kicking the can down the road
in our anomie habitat
Thus reaping what we are owed
slow motion fascist coup d’etat?
Tell, when was cataclysm ever averted
by hiding out in consumerism perverted?
When we act ’emotionally reasoned’
seems initially to work well
while the approach must left us unseasoned
to stave off the any task’s death knell
While distracted by our own schlock
absorbed in state affective
we won’t hear Reality knock
thus losing all perspective
We can’t be bothered to dissect
what is cause & what is effect
Right wingers march in neo-heimat
breathe out air & thought pollution
To ignore the collapsing climate
appears their preferred ‘solution’
How shall this mess, surely soon, end
as false cheers drag us in abjection?
Pernicious threats makes deadly blend
in consumer dreams, wide selection:
Wars been raging without ceasefires
as do now global floods, wildfires
Nations lacking sense to back down
prance at very edge of nuclear war
they war game ‘limited’ showdown
while ‘suitcase bombs’ may blast through backdoor
Too close to the edge we totter
in political meltdown
by the self-styled ‘genius’ plotter
revealed himself vile a clown
Economy precariously
fumbles while greed’s ruthless prophets
on Wall Street most nefariously
amass usurious profits
Enabled by our own inanity
we’re perishing amidst insanity!
+)
‘genius’ plotter = Trump