Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Self-driven technology
becoming article of faith
dogmatic theology
while implementation the wraith
Letting automation thrive
as we watch, indulged til cockeyed?
While cars built as fun to drive
we’ll be along just or the ride!
Though would we not get relieved
wildly keeping on high-fiveing
when this techno-fix achieved
no one gets fined for drunk driving
While slack-jawed we praise high-tech as The Solution
aren’t there saner paths of human evolution?
Narrow roads edge dusty deep ravines
up & down, contorting, twisting
slicing faded cliffs more brown than green
Curve following curve, persisting
With tenuous roadway traction
cars squeezing mere feet apart
no place to indulge distraction
where driving a martial art
Just guessing at what’s up ahead
heedless of ravine-plunging dread
Cresting cliffs, mindless of ravines
in youth we indulged aspiration
silly fantasies, hopes & dreams
Then woke up from exhilaration
On whatever life’s journey bestowed
winding roads shall turn less thrilling
Time, strength, guts & prospects all erode
aging’s rain drizzles bone chilling
Just beyond the very next bend
awaits too soon our journey’s end
In unstirring whiffed cottage jammed
stepping over those scattered
slumbering tightly, mushroomed, crammed
Surfaces gleam beer splattered
Morning of the young artist
tall still in hope, slim hipped
no 9-to-5 trudge ‘valse triste’
bearing still straight, rose lipped
Indolent black cats stir both
white pawed, green marbled eyes
now stretching, compassion loath
killers in cutesy guise
Morning dawns subliminal
in night’s lingering haze
Above rocks ravinial
sun’s first tenuous rays
From above stillness violated
through mufflers crescendo aggrieved
dawn’s purity adulterated
nature of her stillness bereaved
+)
-from above = here: from the road above the gulch
-ravinial = (by license) anything in or of a ravine
Might we lived our life
differently
not ducking from strife
diffidently?
Of course if no ‘free will’
we may relax, chill
life but a puppet drill!
Can’t let it go still?
But then clearly & consequently
we cannot WILL living attently
This verse was inspired by grandson Mikey when as a small boy he romped on top of the windlass in the bow of HMS ‘Queen Mary’, moored in Long Beach, CA since 1967. Of course ‘sic transit gloria mundi’ ship wise, while Mikey is still in his prime as a young man.
On polished upper decks: splendor & light
a display of power, riches & fame
while in the ship’s belly toiled crew out of sight
Times past like today, remaining the same
In her day the flagship of empire
enterprise, industry & might
albeit were it soon to expire
based more on arrogance than right
Many a storm howled around the crew in the con
No longer sets her bow in huge waves rushing on:
The windlass a stage for a toddler’s romp
as parents watch by gleaming gunnels
Without fail shall fade circumstance & pomp.
The ship a play field with three funnels
Now an amusement park in a disparate age
the ‘Queen Mary’ languishes moored in a zoo’s cage
+)
-funnel = smokestack, especially on a steamship
-gunnels = the upper edge of a ship’s side
-the ‘Queen Mary’ held the ‘Blue Ribbon’ speed record across the Atlantic after averaging 31 knots in 1938, between New York and Southampton
Saving time only to see it squandered
on ‘easy come, easy go’ paths wandered?
Time rules in our enslaved existence
so we keep up the frantic fuss
traipsing the ‘path of least resistance’
and allowing it to own us
In ‘me first’ scuffles we collude
amidst unrelenting rush
Noses to multiple screens glued
Gush, much fuss. Not enough blush
So then why not let ‘mindful & slow’
rather than ’scurrying nonplussed’
prevail as the default way to go
chancing to let settle the dust?
Living at our own pace
let’s us wander with grace
Words coolly glitter
dashingly dance
observe them flitter
in pompous prance
Though off the wall
bouncingly banal
displaying gall
amongst their cabal
Disturbing distraction
when smoothly spouted
in make-belief traction
sense, meaning flouted
Haphazard words careen
noisily trenchant
in mangled phrases preen
as is their penchant
Phrases splashed
‘in’ words flashed
Grammar trashed
unabashed
All the while grasp gashed
facts, logic lashed
mushy meanings mashed
’same old’ rehashed
Words flow in overabundance
in hyperbolic redundance
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
Beguiled the restive mill malltitudes
unbeknownst fumbling for meaning
chasing acquisitive magnitudes
harshly gleaning, overweening
Fleetingly on cloud nine
their eyes glowering
mining for gold online
those crisp screens scouring
Soon enough fizzles their proclivity
into poor paralyzed passivity
+)
malltitudes = (by license) the thronging multitudes at malls
Drawn owlish train whistles
in plaintive shrillness
each piercingly chisels
through nightly stillness
Through windows in blurry caprice
darkly flash by power poles
Swaying coach cradling us in peace
lounging bodies, stirred up souls
Thunders through crossings’ clangs
of collapsing crescendo
fading as also-rangs
until mere innuendo
Through mountains, along banks
rolls the Coast Starlight
Each wheel set timely clanks
in silent moonlight
+)
-also-rang = rang: past tense of ring; from ‘also-ran’
-Coast Starlight = the Amtrak train between Seattle and Los Angeles