eric sundin

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

edited 11/24/23 1530

Who might you be to berate?
Hold your holy holler!
My sorting aim simple, straight:
paper clips by color

To you perhaps a clip mere wire
cavalierly curved metal
its ingeniousness won’t inspire
or found lacking its mettle?

While to me colored paper clips
strew paths like do rose petals
May distract like succulent lips
Prove gallantry like medals

But then I, like the clips, I consent
am as well of a peculiar bent

edited 11/27/21 1220

Global warming

A bike dealer who mentions global warming may indeed be guilty of the same self serving cheap promotion as the car dealership, which flies an over sized American flag or the politician who presumes to speak for ‘all hardworking folks’.

Be this as it may, the earth is “on the verge of disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control, causing mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.”

James Hansen, the chief climate scientist at NASA, returned to Capitol Hill in June, on the twentieth anniversary of his 1988 testimony, to indeed warn that the earth is on the verge of “disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control,” causing “mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.”

Obviously no amount of bicycling shall reverse or by itself significantly slow the spiraling.

Nothing shall. Short of perhaps radical life style changes right now, which clearly ain’t happening.

But for all its horror I’d personally rather know than living in denial of my own betrayal of future generations. Being only one of some 7 billions humans cannot lessen my complicity. I have sadly done nothing beyond mildly inconveniencing myself regarding arguably the greatest calamity that can possibly face life on planet Earth.

Written in 2009.

Propeller

What kind of boating feller
names his ship ‘propeller’?

Stirred perhaps by humor, rancor
or nautically confused thinker?
Why not ‘rudder’, perhaps ‘anchor’
as doubt a name shall sink’er?

Or a marine case of the tail wagging man’s best friend
a ship rotating round idle prop at its aft end?

Photo by Boon Goh, Nov 2013

(*) m/v = motor vessel

edited 03/19/18 1535

Seas roaring, winds howling
Shredded clouds racing
under dark skies scowling
Wild whitecaps chasing

Above clean blown ocean
fowl soaringly strewn
sail in spray splashed motion
below moody moon

Crashing on to stolid rocks
waves implode, plundering
Washing over creaking docks
winds in gusts thundering

Watching in deep emotion
stirred by my life far flung
on wild waves of commotion
by raging regrets stung

My own past as well
been too windswept
then calmed in slow swell
relieved I wept

+)
-swell = the undulating movement of the surface of the open sea; particularly non-breaking waves following a storm

edited 02/13/23 1440

Have gotten too immersed
in stanza & verse
as if being coerced
Outright prose averse

Struck by rhymatic fever
meant my social death knell
Life under lifted cleaver
casts lonely outcast’s spell

Keeps fumbling the prosody
until turns tragicomedy
which fades in aprosody
until picks up in psalmody

The mere sometimes lapse or slip
or am I losing my grip?

+)
-aprosody = (speech pathology) lack of variations in speech, such as speed, tone, and emphasis
-prosody = the study of meter and the art of versification
-psalmody = the act of singing psalms or hymns
-‘rhymatic’ fever = (license) condition that compels to express us in verse of rhyme

edited 03/31/23 1720

They used to all together
peskily be swarming
flew in all sorts of weather
as well farm ‘barn storming’

Now one buzzes alone
feebly, risking stall
by cold, shifting winds blown:
The Last Fly of Fall

Flight pattern erratic
dropped altitude
traumatic, near static
down on attitude

Hark jarring vibration!
Horror! Airspeed drops!
Fatal vacillation!
Tail spin, then fly flops!

It has crashed, feet in air:
its worn wings wrinkled
lit emergency flare
shows fly parts sprinkled

A fly whom the Gods love dives young
still vivacious, hellacious!
Those who fly too long live unsung:
turn loquacious, vexatious!

+)
‘flyacious’ = (by license) flight gone awry

edited 10/01/21 1145

Past thinning trees ablaze
on roads wetly glaced
In sunlit lukewarm haze
hills pumpingly paced

Slim tires splashing
through leaves stockpiling
Cyclists dashing
on rides beguiling

Linger the last Autumn days
lustrous, crisply tender
Under Winter’s furtive gaze
fades Fall’s cerise splendor

+)
pumpingly = as in pedaling hard, i.e. ‘pumping’ the pedals

edited 06/25/23 0820

Soaked in Autumn’s chilled squalls
from communing skies
trees sway in windy brawls
Pendulous allies …

… wholeheartedly plunging
Daring dance enthralled:
branches wildly lunging
though clashes forestalled

Howling gusts stir up leaves on ground
Dark clouds tear through branches ungowned

edited 10/18/24 0710

Keyboards clatteringly tapped
without effort or strain
Human memory lapped, gapped
does save time, while lulls brain

Using lingo histrionic
on smart devices electronic
our bodies slump catatonic
instant searches counter-mnemonic

When netting victories Pyrrhic
online joy must fade dysphoric

edited 10/17/2026 0740