they tell me what to long for, twenty-four minutes every
hour
through my radio and tv, from billboards, in the paper and
online as well as on my cell
pounding it constantly and far too obviously into the holes
that they have drilled into my head
and though I knowingly laugh and nod, I just keep on buying,
anyway
they tell me that they only provide the things I kept on saying I always wanted
based of course, just upon, the high-margin items they chose
to show me -
wrapped colorfully in the clever sloganeering of those very
slick campaigns:
wasteful but high-profit vehicles designed not to last and
shoddily produced
low-risk ironclad leasing deals crafted upon sticky
financial fly paper
lifestyle enhancing drugs more expensive to market than to
research
costly and unproven supplements fortified with imaginary
claims
foods full of salt and sugar, greasy fats, artificial
colorings and chemical preservatives
their allies place such products in the formulaic action
movies that they feed us
these epics I watch in the places that are owned by their
close associates
or they tie them in each month with fast food deal or some
pre-paid sports championship
and I commit another plot to memory for bright regurgitation
among acquaintances
each and every store in those disposable malls wherein,
I first experience the chaotic bits of meaning they have
designed for my life
is owned by the faceless, absent multi-nationalists,
and staffed by the marginalized, the bored and the
permanently disaffected
each and every consumer move I make carefully monitored and
recorded
by greedy and voyeuristic, high-commission marketeers
and what little thoughts I actually produce are but simply
feedback
produced only from the steady stream of nonsense that they
feed me
the single mothers cannot nurture their amoral, bastard
children
because their own mothers never learned these basic skills
before the childhoods of their own parents ended far too
prematurely
in a cycle that now seems to us, as old and natural as time
itself
my neighborhood resembles the poultry compounds built by
agribusiness
my city like their stinking feedlots, my house identical to
the other sties
I move about upon the filth I create in line with the entire
diarrheic flock
for only so long as I am capable of working long hours and
spending too quickly
I mass together in those chattering prairie dog cubicle
colonies,
a piece of voluntary veal, happily lashed down inside my
little pen
every day my fashion statement requiring much more thought
than I ever give to the filthy mess I help create
through the commonplace acts of my humble faith-based life
I claim to work so hard to pay off all the debts,
motivated by needs that were artificially induced,
that my relaxation is only found in front of huge TV screens,
thinking very little and moving even less
too unaware to know that fast food kills, or that hot drinks must surely burn
that tobacco causes cancer, or
sitting on my ass must make me rot
I should hire a lawyer to go find someone to sue for me,
so that I can pay off all these debts for which there’s
nothing left to show
too full of fairytale images implanted by a vampire media
too wedded to the status quo, too tightly bound to
manufactured traditions
and the guilt that is such a vital part of their merchant's
holidays
to assess or even comprehend the waste produced simply by my
existence
and finally as I lay in my own toxic byproducts and listen
as I wheeze,
watched over by bored and careless immigrant strangers
being paid by merged and downsized medical conglomerates,
I receive the very best care that my remaining money
and a corporate decision-making team can provide
then it's off to chain-store funeral parlors staffed by
those
who care as much as I once did about the boring jobs that
they do
selling themes to suit the lifestyle that I am now departing
preying upon my family’s grief using the leverage of their
guilt
