long retail lines sting
impatience brews within them
anger serves no one
Does this mean much to you,
Force fed at Yuletide too?
Unsure if Jesus meant all this,
Tinsel town of retail bliss,
Beginning to feel like Yuletide,
Snow in Aussie ocean tide,
Swimming and drinking,
What is Santa thinking?
Overfeeding everyone,
Overstuffed games in the sun,
Does Jesus think we're crude?
Groaning, here's more food,
Gimme more gifts and a card,
Graft for Christmas, that's so hard,
No matter who's to blame,
Mega stores feel no shame.
Buy, buy, buy, right away,
Rather ceasefires this festive day,
Despite Bing Crosby, okay
That's what Jesus would really say!
They trudged through the side entrance
past the wall of Pepsi products
down the aisle between
beauty aids and bedding,
passing stacks of toilet paper
‘As Seen on TV’ and sporting goods
deeper into the insatiable appetite
of American consumerism
They entered through the door marked
DO NOT ENTER!
climbed the stairs to exchange their freedom
for a badge number and a pricing gun
to trade their free-will for numbness
They are now doomed to lurk up and down
those never ending corridors
seeking, probing…forever searching
for the end of another work day
I am getting myself a retail therapy cat said my aunt.
I met one once, and I am telling you that you simply can’t!
She had made up her mind and brought home Mrs. T.
A well-dressed cat that was persnickety, stuck-up and snooty.
She won’t speak to me and she puts on airs, said my Aunt Lee.
I told you not to bring one home I said, laughing a bit with know-it-all-glee.
Mrs. T was outfitted in round dark shades with white rims.
Her leopard cape was elegant without any kind of extra flair or trims.
She was carrying a black patent leather purse when out popped a mouse.
The creature was wearing a mink pillbox hat that outclassed our house.
A mouse too! Said my aunt. What on earth was I thinking?
The mouse ran up into a wall and died there, so now things are stinking.
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
The Witch and the Ghost were sitting on a tree -
Hot&Heavy K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
She cast a love spell on her date,
By dawn her beau would dissipate.
Boo-ha-hah!!!The Witch flew on a shopping spree.
Spiteful and vindictive kind, she got a plan -
To spread the evil word among her own clan -
That Ghost’s macho is inflated,
And his manhood’s overrated!
In fact, bwa-ha-hah!!! Invisible, no pun!
October 11, 2020
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 !
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
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
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.
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.
its has gress
and a pass
drive in side
its wide
this is where to go
rent space at this store
also a secrity fence
this is the place
RETAIL SPACE FOR RENT
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.
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