Best Retail Poems
It's one week till Christmas
And we've had enough
Of grumpy old shoppers
Complaining about stuff.
They hate the line-ups,
They hate the cashiers.
They won't be happy
Till they have us in tears.
The things they are after
Are long gone from the store.
They find it incredulous
We won't be getting more.
Last minute shoppers
Are a pain in the rump.
Each night by closing
This place looks like a dump.
One more week to go,
I sure hope we make it
But in the meantime
We'll just smile and fake it.
It's two weeks till Christmas
And the store is a zoo.
The customers are grumpy
And I guess we are too.
Whatever they're after
Has already been sold.
If all the tinsels silver,
You can bet they want gold.
The cashiers are all working
As fast as they can.
Would serve the shoppers right
If we just up and ran.
In retail it's hectic
This time of the year
So no matter what happens
Don't let them see fear.
The one day we're closed
Will be Christmas Day
And we've all asked Santa
For an increase in pay.
An over-burdoned wife from old Sydney Town,
Life on top of her and feeling quite down,
So, retail therapy off she went,
On Master Card two thousand spent,
Now her husband is wearing a frown.
Alternate last line options:
1. Now her husband wears a frown.
2. Now her husband's feeling down.
3. Now hubby makes a whimpering sound.
Yesterday I found myself slumped
into the saddest of trenches,
for no particular reason
other than a new moon cycle.
Instead of flopping myself
in my studio’s armchair to write,
I drove to the mall for an outing
probably more expensive than
what a therapist would charge
for an hour in his armchair.
I wandered into the shoe store—
something about leather
which grounds me, whether
the flimsy strapless heels
or the closed-toed pumps or walkers.
Already lugging two bags, I meander
into the lingerie store for silk
to accentuate my only remaining
middle-age curves, skipping over the thongs
and hesitating at the push-up section.
I try on four or five pairs of underwear
to accentuate my butt area,
the part of a woman which shares the
secret of her fitness, that I work on
each morning at seven.
I arrive at the boutique who sells my favorite
blouses, gather some more bags, walking out
with an almost terminal case of rope burn,
until I finally decide it’s time to head back to my car.
On my way I stop, smile, and realize
there’s no better way to fight trench warfare.
There's a dinging in the kitchen,
There's a ringing in my head,
Someone's singing in my closet,
But, I fear the tenor's dead.
There's a clatter in my cupboard,
There's a matter unresolved,
There's a tiny pitter patter
Which is screaming up my hall.
There's a titillating teeter—totter
Slamming up and down.
And the bumpiness alone,
Just slid my grin into a frown.
Someone call the proper people,
Shut the silence off and then
Call the plumber, what a bummer,
I am dripping wet again.
All this screaming and complexity.
This damned insipid stain,
Is deplorable, abhor able
And driving me insane.
And the sum of all this madness
Has my tongue and guts in knots.
So you do all the talking...
Because I forgot the plot.
I work in the retail sector.
I smile all day long.
I hear the same lame jokes
and pretend to laugh along.
"If it doesn't scan its free""
I hear sixty times a day.
I smile and say "No it's not"
because I really need the pay.
"The price is too high' "Can I bring it back".
I wonder why they came.
I nod, agree and just play dumb.
I know how to play this game.
If you've never worked in retail
you've no clue what I mean.
The way some people treat you
can't be believed until its seen.
My co-workers keep me sane.
They know all about retail
and how if we acted on our thoughts
we'd likely end up in jail.
To work in the retail sector
takes a special kind of person I think
and of course its a really big help
if you're crazy and you drink.
01/06/2019
I will say it loud and proud, from a cloud or in a crowd;
I will say it by rail, mail, in a fierce wail or pierced braille:
I do not like the holiday assail so trite-spiked by all retail:
Pumpkins in the summer, early turkey ads for dinner;
Santa as a sprinter so early, his burly gets girly trimmer;
Cupid on December twenty six making him a stupid nit wit;
Easter clothes and candy posing faster than when dandy!!
Time is precious, it’s a crime to infect us with flare unfair.
Greedy nerve ever serves “pay today” without dismay
way before calendars punt the month of the day our way.
With maxed credit limits, we’re still roving for goods
spinning our wheels over ought-to’s and shoulds
We’ll shop till we’re dropped,
might see a guy popped,
in the nose over faded blue jeans.
If it’s the very last pair
(on sale, of course, at the Mart)
but please, let’s try to be fair,
if they aren’t quite yet placed in his cart.
Why does this season pull at our strings?
Because of our penchant for “favorite things.”
Memories mostly, “the-way-that-we-were.”
Memories ghostly, but they sure spur
a desire to share, as generations unfold,
the “how-to-give-manual,” as once we were told.
So we spend and sing loud in raucous good cheer,
rubbing our elbows as though drinking beer.
When it’s all over we’ll recycle (please?)
wrappers and flappers and stifle a sneeze,
as up a cold chimney we go
with a grunt and a mighty HO HO!
Torn quite asunder and spent,
from another mad Christmas hell-bent.
It's mid November and in every store
there are Santas and Reindeer and coloured lights galore.
The sales clerks are stressing this time of the year
as all the cranky customers are drawing near.
They want this, they want that. God forbid we run out.
They'll string us up alive, of this we've no doubt.
It's Christmas in retail and we watch tempers flare
while listening to carols as they fill the air.
Not even December and we're already tired
but we smile and fake it so we won't get fired.
We once hoped for peace and a little joy.
Instead we hear toddlers screaming for a toy.
This can't possibly be what this holiday is for.
It should be about family, not what's in the store.
But like every year we'll just muddle through it
because its all about the gifts and we all knew it.
18/11/2018
A Christmas Thought
It was a night like this
That the world changed forever
Some say for the worse
Some say for the better
A child arrived
The King of Kings
The world would be different
So the Angel sings
Unto you a child is born
The Son of God by name
Some were happy he was here
Others not so that he came
Wars are fought in the belief
That their Lord is the one
But, truly isn't each sides Lord
Our God's only son
He never travelled far from home
His message and his word
Were spread throughout the many lands
His silence not deterred
He spoke the word of God himself
He performed miracles for some
He'd do so in His Holy name
And his end would swiftly come
He never made age thirty four
Thirty Three up on the cross
He gave his life for his beliefs
Would you do so....at that cost?
His birthday, do we celebrate
Each year, at least we try
School plays portray the Saviours birth
Then retailers tell us buy
The season is not retail based
It is the Celebration of The One
The importance of the season's lost
When the Christmas plays are done
This year, please take a moment
Think about what Christmas means
Think about The Son of God
Before you try on those new jeans....
Kick the boot
Kick the boot
Put it in the net after we shoot
Kick the boot
Kick the boot
Get a goal that would be a hoot
Kick the boot
Kick the boot
I will play my magic flute
‘Toot Toot’
This theatrical action
Conjured up a wonderful attraction
Since suddenly there
A lovely dare
Looking like a tease
We must mind our manners ‘using the words thank you and please’
Kick the boot
Kick the boot
There is a Sicilian girl who is unbelievably cute
Sporting a designer Italian business suit
“Oh boy just kick the boot”
She exclaimed
Knowing how to play the game
Blushing we, both turned red,
Over what was said
As our mouths went mute
The lady started to root
When things seemed done
Our new companion wanted to have fun
“May I ask?”
“If I do this simple task?
Kicking off my painful high heels
That boot may I steal?
The one you kick
Is the favorite that I would pick
To wear
And cover my leg that is bare.”
I quickly replied
While my buddy almost fainted and died
“Kick the boot
Kick the boot
I will play my luring flute
Encouraging that Sicilian girl who sure is cute”
It was then
I must commend
The dream did come to an end
And when I saw my dear friend
At school
I told him the nighttime vision that was cool
“We made this incredible goal score
And it was witnessed by a Sicilian who we did not ignore
Instead, we did as she request
And gave her our fashionably boots that were the best
She went home
All alone
And when she kicked off the boot
She remembered the young boys who were cute
And sincere with that romantic flute
Two that were filled with amour
Successfully managing the five and dime department store,”
Moral is
In the retail biz
Kick around a boot
While playing a magical flute
You never know when the one will arrive
Needing to buy
A boot
On display next to a flirting flute
You hang on a rail
Poised in the window.
Flaunt yourself to passers by.
They gawp at you
Then walk on by.
You start to feel cheap
No one cares anymore
They want to swap you
For a newer model.
They move you to the back
You've sunk to their level.
Few people try you on.
Your last year's fashion.
Your on sale.
There’s a place in never never land
Where shopping centres go
Every single night to replace
The goods they have on show
You’ll never see them travelling
'Cos they go through hyper-space
And sometime in the panic
Get returned to the wrong place
So if you’re in your city centre
And the shops don’t seem quite right
You can bet your bottom dollar
They’ve had a busy night
And in the panic and the mayhem
What should have gone to Crewe
Got sent to Market Wittering
Causing a to do
The staff doesn’t really care
So long as they can vend
And people seldom notice
Just carry on and spend
It doesn’t really matter
For in the retail game
Every single shopping centre
Looks the bloody same
Ghost Mall
The chess king
still searches for
his foxmoor inside
the ghost mall;
she slips behind
a casual corner
somewhere
down by the Gimbels
sipping an Orange Julius
with Hot Sam.
No one sees
the old
bypass men
traipsing around
the dry fountains
overandover
in their white
Kinney’s
others
loop-de-loop,
over the Scoop
and under the
kiosk bone fields
stopping to
prayby
the Lazarus door
My television is now in the trash because it became to much ,
the constant sound of selfishness and lack of human touch .
That one eyed monster is finally gone and good riddance too all it’s lies.
As I slammed that lid and I’m glad I did I could only feel despise.
Goodbye too your incessant drone ,
And good bye to the disinformation , goodbye too that hypnotic‘I have too buy,
I’m now enjoying conversation .
Your time was had and you took to much
‘of that I am completely sure ,
But I thank the lessons you’ve taught me ,
too Have you around no more !