Black Friday sales and Christmas deals;
Hot on the next bargain’s trail,
Itching to fill the void the heart feels.
Transactions and agreements,
Trappings, false achievements.
Welcome to the era of the shopping mall;
This is where your dreams hop off to die,
This is their final port of call.
Everything and everyone is a commodity;
Barcoded, plastic-wrapped merchandise,
Categorisation for you and your progeny.
If money doesn’t germinate from its seed,
If it does not clothe and feed,
Then it is not something we need.
We are a philistine’s *******.
We strive to achieve the American scheme;
Delusional and overworked, about to scream,
Believing all of us can be billionaires forever,
As the planet grows hungry and lean.
Or, believing some deserve yachts and limousines,
That some should starve,
Whilst others gorge themselves on fine cuisines.
Believing that society should be divided in layers,
Assuaging our guilt with thoughts and prayers,
When instead, we could have just refrained from leaving others behind.
When everything becomes a commodity,
Art for the sake of making it becomes an oddity.
Poets retire their pens,
And painters put down their brushes -
Apathy and despair fog the lands,
Like irradiated wind corrupting everything it touches.
Singers go quiet, actors go numb;
Musicians will riot, orators will be struck dumb.
When our own turn on us, tell us to get “a real job”,
When “job creators” are done calling us “lazy slobs”,
None of us will be around to point out the irony.
We will go extinct, a dying breed, finally gone;
Life will be succinct, the greedy will have won.
Slay your kings and queens, or remain a pawn.
Tell me I'm wrong.
