Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
People already hapless
buy phones ever smarter
which turns them ever sapless
What a mindless barter!
Never learnt to navigate
so by voice command dialing
let GPS cogitate
On-screen found oh-so beguiling!
Never mind that crisp phones resplendent
make humans ever more dependent …
With your nose on smart phone screen
wholly unrestricted
like snorting stuff up the nose
you may be ‘addicted’
Makes you feel ascendent
like anything goes
Even seem transcendent
when you’re in its throes
while just lit by the sheen
from flat fantasy’s screen
Prior to restored eyesight
was bumbling benighted
had felt anxious & contrite
with outlook unsighted
I just couldn’t envision
the light beyond cataract
before the incision
had seemed remotely abstract
Since as if by Kliegs enhanced my eyesight
would that next my soul shall fill with insight!
+)
Klieg = an intense carbon arc light especially used in film making
Shiny the lacquer
that positively screams:
“Here drives no slacker
but someone lives their dreams!”
Lighting, screens gleaming
painted darkly, sized huge
with gadgets teeming
No measly subterfuge!
Keeps conniving
through windows tinted
pushing, driving
to self unstinted!
But not hard to figger
why the rush to bigger:
Mighty fortress wheeled
of menacing power
as cave, as crutch, shield
We’re King in our Tower!
A drunk could sort this one out
on a cocktail napkin soggy
or after a knocked-out bout
so would any boxer groggy
While you, Ace Consumer
keep chasing more to possess
consumed by ill-humor
ear-plugged, eyes on GPS:
aren’t reconciled to that your apps
won’t heal your cold heart or flabby abs
Strolling, to their kids inattentive
parents seen glued to their smart phones
Swept by insidious incentive
they perform as tech-prompted clones
while unseen their kids glaring glum
pining for an attentive crumb
How hastily they faded
the 1920s jaded!
Now roar the 2020s
optimism restoring
but in unequal plenties
with AI faith soaring
But hurricanes rage, forests burn down
with neo-Fascism on the rise
civil & economic breakdown
in cruelly volatile guise
Now misruled by kakistocracy
brought us humiliating lows
mired in horrific hypocrisy
to suffer unknowable throes
Anytime soon now The Free Fall
which we won’t be able forestall
+)
1920’s = the ‘roaring twenties’ with its boundless optimism about the future
How are we expected prescient
about all that’s devolving
when of context sorely nescient
whilst most values dissolving?
But who needs knowing
can’t we just keep going
conning, elbowing
pushing, and then crowing?!
Still ain’t there unsettling sense it’s bugling taps
that nations, environment are near collapse?
Slow to warm up, old geezer
cozy home feels like freezer
Although the thermostat
that trusty technocrat
set on ‘high’ – no appeaser!
This morning found a lady bug
floating in my grapefruit juice
In place of a ‘so what?’ mere shrug
were hoping work out a truce:
If I do not place my drink
right below her flight path
she’s promises to rethink
where next takes her juice bath
But where’s the app with the math
that predicts a bug’s flight path?