Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
Trend chasing & smart phone prattle
sound to me like empty rattle
It keeps fading my persistence
feeling drained & depleted
Asking haven’t I gone the distance
or am I just conceited?
May I just be left alone?
Chances of change long blown
feeble, soggy my backbone
Hope, once stout, long since flown
In what small time may still be left
please let me not crumble bereft!
In 2016 Hillary Clinton treated voters like neglected dogs, which even so should somehow be expected to happily wave their tails at her. After all one of her slogans mightily presumed: “It’s her turn!’. Some of these long suffering dogs bit her instead.
While low were voter expectations
So what? Been so for generations
Bleak, tawdry that election
discourse stuck inchoate
while she was the selection
of Israel, Kuwait
Worn people like soggy dogs
tails tween legs, buzzed by fleas
on muddy slippery slogs
shook off Hillary’s bees
Campaign’s debates were largely disingenuous
the candidate’s grip on Reality tenuous
Since been blessed to know stillness
are we not now sensing squarely
as agonizing ‘shrillness’
even when dough rises barely?
Clasped in stillness each moment
entirely abounds
ethereal bestowment
eternally astounds
Though clear-cut answers may prove chimeric
resting in stillness is found mesmeric
Opposite people attract
and if titillation
they may end up tightly packed
Bring on captivation!
While those birds of a feather
flock together tamely
those odd ones gladly tether
pressed together gamely
It shall majorly matter
among life’s klutzy clatter
While our human brain humongous
now scattered on screens shiny
(devices which grow like fungus)
our intellects stuck tiny
Critical thinking frail
Listening pretense deadpan
Suggestions captious, stale
Shortened our attention span:
“What again was that question,
did you ask: Where’s the restroom?”
Written originally just after the 2016 Trump & Pence election:
A Nation deeply embroiled
directionless & despoiled
Prez-elect narcissistic:
a bully chauvinistic
His VP pietistic:
prim, clean cut, jingoistic
In tawdry turmoil
they’re each other’s foil
In historic campaign brashest
nation’s figurehead now vile gargoyle
premonition neo-fascist
to which in cowardice we recoil
Entering frayed fantasy
we’re dragged into anomie!
+)
-anomie = a state characterized by a breakdown or absence of social norms and values
-foil = a person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast (although how could it work in this case?)
-gargoyle = an ornament consisting of a grotesquely carved figure of a person (though here perhaps a carved figure of a grotesque person?)
Bakom ratten i vår körfil
alltför lätt att förtvivlas
inför Livets nästa örfil
nått som ej bör betvivlas
Inte kan det väl passa
för nån gammal stofil
att hålla på å svassa
fast helt ‘mobilsenil’?
Minsann tid att sej skärpa
Hög tid sluta kackla
till sist nått vettigt värpa
Så ta sats, glidtackla!
Bättre välan försöka deltaga
än att bara lipa å beklaga!
Rusa ej på dotcom
färdas varken för sakta
eller alltför bråttom!
Köp måttligt, undvik trakta
Jo, så kan beskrivas ‘lagom’
men syns mest rena larvet
så vi flesta slösar tvärtom
vettigare tiders arv
Om nån ej vill ha för mycket
så kanske hjälpsamt liksom
att vi tar det större stycket
så de kan leva lagom!
Eftersom ju rena godtycket
blir oftast ‘lagom’ för lite
för oss blir ingenting för mycket
tillkännager vi vid vite:
Att ‘överflöd’ löper sitt ärevarv
i detta vårt glänsande tidevarv
Common sense loses all traction
in ever contagious anomie
Hearts losing courage for action
in free fall from erstwhile apogee
Our faux free-willed self-containment
shall assure the same result
of our chasing entertainment
an indulgence we exult
as well acting out blindly
in feckless ways unkindly
Aren’t words just something we utter
so no cause to get uptight?
As something we just let flutter
no need for feeling contrite?
Take care to avoid some subjects
while be up on latest trends
Lay off our usual suspects
who talk Tesla but drive Benz
Above all don’t appall them all
by acting the rumpled sleuth
who with hapless self-righteous gall
goes out looking for The Truth!
Beware that if we bring up facts
bystanders shall forthwith make tracks!
+)
-facts = caution: factual evidence, unless disregarded, may stop us from doing what we want