Two entries in one day! Don’t know what’s gotten into me but I’ll probably be scaring off any readers if I have any… it won’t happen too often, I promise.
I just got home from Warringah Mall. I was standing in line waiting to return a digital frame to BigW (that said it played AVI files and MPEG4 files and after wasting much of my time creating such files decided it actually would not live up to its specifications) and I looked around to observe the commotion and busy lives of all the people surrounding me. Aisles full of bright coloured junk-foods, clothes, makeup, home-goods, and lines of people waiting to spend their hard-earned money on these things. I know shops play an important role in our lives, and that this “stuff” is what makes our world go round. But waiting there all the good feelings I took away from the pilates class I’d just taken seemed to disappear and my irritation with our capitalistic society began to build up. A pen and paper came out of my bag and I wrote a poem to express it. Random, i know.
Anyway, here it is:
Shopping malls & traffic jams
Is there any worse place to be?
Consuming carbon waste
From trucks to lungs
From aisles to homes
Children in trolleys cry as I wait
I vow never to have more than one
Shopping clerks to scan my items
Swipe my card – more junk is mine
Where does it begin?
Where does it end?
Our addiction to buy
Drives the trucks to deliver
We want more capital
We want more wealth
Our love of things
But do we love our work?
Spend money
Work to earn more
Exploit our earth
Exploit the poor
The spiral of death
Want; Work; Buy; Want; Work; Buy;
Pollute our minds
But WHY? WHY?
What is the solution?
What can be done?
WANT LESS WORK LESS!!!
Enjoy what you have
Share what you’ve got
Love our earth;
Love one another;
Love yourself.
Juliet Bennett – 17 Sept 09
