Welcome to the Slough O' Despond Shopper!
Oh, the warmhearted clerk you liked won't be back--
we chained her to a stove and dumped the stove down the
roiling
oilspill
of our ravenous bellies.
Don't be bitter, we still offer a wide selection
of watery logic and dubious ingredients.
Our highly satisfactory laundry products get everything
whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes
when we ride him into our slaughterdreams
which are
members-only
and fully automatic.
Check out today's special! BOGO on genders
of which there are two but only one matters.
Recite with us our shopper's guarantee! We
pledge allegiance to our public, but only
those who happened to be born in our parking lot.
Come on,
crawl in,
leap in, but don't look
at the price tags cleverly hidden in plain sight and doubled every day.
_________________
"Slough O' Despond Shopper" taken from a line in Grover Lewis's poem You Know Where.
I am in a state of utter despair today about my country and the apparently innumerable people in it who just voted in a doddering Christo-fascist dictator.
Music: Celine Dion Think Twice. It's a break-up song. It reminds me of my country.
I love this - particularly the last verse. I've been thinking about gender and the third place a lot lately. Suzanne - Wayfaring- Wordpress blog.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much to dismantle now that " the warmhearted clerk you liked won't be back." I, too, am devastated, and scared for us all--especially for those who have found freedom outside the "parking lot." "Think Twice" is perfect. People, more than half of our nation, have been blinded by something. I can't believe they don't know what they voted in.
ReplyDelete"Don't be bitter, we still offer a wide selection
ReplyDeleteof watery logic and dubious ingredients."
The dubious ingredients definitely get to me. So many people were fooled by them, think they are real and their salvation, not knowing they were peddled by a snake oil salesman. I am so very disallusioned and saddened by all who bought in.
Shay, I won't be participating in your list this week. I am too disheartened. I need time to heal.
ReplyDeleteI am sickened too and suspicious of the results. Terrible. The price is going to be higher than anyone can imagine, and no one will be unaffected.
ReplyDeleteSome chilling imagery here, especially in these lines :
ReplyDelete"Our highly satisfactory laundry products get everything
whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes"...
"Come on,
ReplyDeletecrawl in,
leap in, but don't look
at the price tags cleverly hidden in plain sight and doubled every day."
Profound and creepy at the same time.
The sadness of the world really comes across here - I love the form as it seems to trickle off the page like losing hope - have just read Starling House and it mentioned Dollar General so it was good to get a photo of one too - may future days be brighter - Jae
ReplyDeleteThis is truly a stunning and spot on indictment of the recent debacle, showing us all its horrors, and its creeping roots that dig deep into and subsume human brains, replacing logic with fear, selfishness and hate. I'm devastated by such lines as "...whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes/when we ride him into our slaughterdreams/
ReplyDeletewhich are/members-only/and fully automatic..." To me this conveys the true evil behind the facade because it shows the facade for exactly the wishful warped thinking it is. The parking lot line is also stellar. I despise the forces which have made you write like this, but I can only applaud the courage and heart that wrote them anyway.
You couldn't have written a better summation of the hell of this mess we find ourselves in. I knew you could put a voice to all the turmoil in my head.
ReplyDeleteWhat you have done here is brilliant Shay! You have nailed the real atrocity of it all in a whole new way to see just how crazy awful it is! Sending you more hugs my friend.
ReplyDeleteLike Jae, I think the form really complements the thoughts, and making a leap across the slough of despond seems to trickle into despair. The "warm-hearted clerk" may have been disappeared politically but her warm-hearted admirers have not. This image,
ReplyDelete"whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes
when we ride him into our slaughterdreams"
really struck me as symbolizing the nightmare half of the country is experiencing.
I'm working backwards. Yes, of course. What country is this? How did we get here?
ReplyDelete