poem of the day 03.14.12

market futures

bought and sold
like cattle

like someone’s junk
at a flea market

aggregates for the capitalist wheel

solicited in our homes
by corporations and co-ops

bought and sold
and bought and sold again

like dim-bulb, free market twits
becoming the product placement

the polished items on the shelf

riding in cars
sleeping in beds

the swaying billboards of commerce
down to the shoelaces

bombarded by ads in emails
scrolled down the sides of homepages

duped into harmless applications
that have tracked every move

by video games mining interests
until there is nothing left to care about

bought and sold
then taken to the slaughter

let it happen
this bargain basement movement

this twenty-first century blow-out sale
where everything must go

autonomy
privacy
dignity and shame

wholesale prices on the conscience
and the flesh

dirty deeds done on the cheap

there is no choice

did this without a care
in the name of community and fun

never getting back what has been lost
because we cannot articulate

what that is

but the feelings at large are hollow
and underhanded

the sneak that has
slithered into our lives

brought to you by….

bought and sold and sold all over

everything that we like
everything that we hate

every pleasure that has ever
tickled our fancy

what we want
before we want it

a retail apocalypse unfolding one click at a time

data mining the guts
into a new numbness of content

the future that was always planned

only no one told us
that it would be like this.