Sunday Stroll

 
I walk slowly along the mall,
treading a changed grey path
dedicated to the consumption
of needs and created dreams
colourfully clamouring for attention,
but all much less interesting than
the souls washing around,
over me like a torrent

I must negotiate this wave with
sidesteps and glances
held momentarily by the closeness
of humanity’s vivid colour
slightly dulled by the greyness
threatening to envelop me

I muse while moving quickly
through the grey tunnel gauntlet

black, winged mini-suns
othwerwise known as street lights
watch over my closed wallet,
while all around me is a  wide-eyed hunger,
the opaque hearts subliminal
in their fashionable beating,
searching for meaning always betrayed,

fleeting satisfaction is always guaranteed
if what you need is always more 
of what squat hawkers promise
their feet cast in concrete and shadows
that shelter the masses from the sun

commerce is burning 
with the fire of a thousand desires,
fuelled by chintzy TV aesthetic flirting
of the hip and the happening

The Balloon Man twists his plastic wares
as the path I take winds slowly
through bare-bellied nymphs,
bare-chested bragadaccios, buffed-out
bruisers, barely mortgaged mums
and dads with their bonny babes
waiting at insensitive automated banking terminals.

Bullshit  is a word springing to mind
on a day when the green vista before me
(free in the distance), remains my reward
for traipsing through this temple of consumption,
the best thing I see not for sale,
no discount needed for my attention
focussed on the tree-covered horizon
drawing me through the retail wringer
that fails to coax my cozy cash from me

I turn to begin another less popular journey
more about knowledge than money