imthefoolonthehill
12-15-2008, 04:41 AM
This poem was inspired by Ginsberg's amazing poem, "A Supermarket in California"
Until I think of a better title, it is called
Walmart
The Florescent lights match
the squeaking of sneakers,
and the chittering of a broken cart.
Doughnuts come and go.
Cakes are reminded of their fragility.
Flowers in fridges try to outlast
the people who put them there.
Tulips tell Roses that revenge requires no thorns.
In another aisle,
blushing limes are squeezed
long before they are weighed
or neatly sliced or put to gin.
Saran wrapped
stockers feel wanted
by the spaces on the shelves.
They spot those who have turned away
and spend time facing
the troubles of Poptarts and bags of flour.
Late night rambling potatoes
and early morning shuffling onions
pass each other with respectful nods
they had hoped to share a pan.
Ambient elevator radio aisles
lead through dishtowels and soaps,
through coffee beans who live
on chaotic, disparate grounds.
The checkout clerk’s scanner
adds a steady beat to the store,
as it reads the spaces between barcodes,
as the clerk reads the spaces between blinks.
The greeter’s growl
gives voice to shopping carts – they say:
Some reject uniformity.
Flickering fluorescents hum their
way through unpredictability.
The carts don’t always sing along
as they cross the lines
of old linoleum, of back-breaking cracks.
Things are about to be bought and swallowed:
corn yet to be popped, aspirin and wine and
possibilities of the endless exponents of choice.
And in exchange, we pay with paper.
If molecules make coin tosses into matters of mathematics,
but chaos clearly has complexity on her side,
then what absurdities are left to an apple rolling down an aisle,
cruising for answers, pointing with its stem
separated from all of its brothers?
criticism welcome and embraced.
Until I think of a better title, it is called
Walmart
The Florescent lights match
the squeaking of sneakers,
and the chittering of a broken cart.
Doughnuts come and go.
Cakes are reminded of their fragility.
Flowers in fridges try to outlast
the people who put them there.
Tulips tell Roses that revenge requires no thorns.
In another aisle,
blushing limes are squeezed
long before they are weighed
or neatly sliced or put to gin.
Saran wrapped
stockers feel wanted
by the spaces on the shelves.
They spot those who have turned away
and spend time facing
the troubles of Poptarts and bags of flour.
Late night rambling potatoes
and early morning shuffling onions
pass each other with respectful nods
they had hoped to share a pan.
Ambient elevator radio aisles
lead through dishtowels and soaps,
through coffee beans who live
on chaotic, disparate grounds.
The checkout clerk’s scanner
adds a steady beat to the store,
as it reads the spaces between barcodes,
as the clerk reads the spaces between blinks.
The greeter’s growl
gives voice to shopping carts – they say:
Some reject uniformity.
Flickering fluorescents hum their
way through unpredictability.
The carts don’t always sing along
as they cross the lines
of old linoleum, of back-breaking cracks.
Things are about to be bought and swallowed:
corn yet to be popped, aspirin and wine and
possibilities of the endless exponents of choice.
And in exchange, we pay with paper.
If molecules make coin tosses into matters of mathematics,
but chaos clearly has complexity on her side,
then what absurdities are left to an apple rolling down an aisle,
cruising for answers, pointing with its stem
separated from all of its brothers?
criticism welcome and embraced.