Consumer Frame

Tonight I am performing poetry at a money-themed event in the City of Gold - Jozi! Here one of the poems>

(this poem i will be performing in a dress made of 2000 beerbottle-tops)

Consumer Frame

welcome, welcome to the

consumer frame

it multiplies to the millions

feeding straight from the conveyor belt

of the factory

to the conveyor belt of your tongue

rattle rattle rattle around your feet

in your mouth

in your stomach

in your eyes

in your ears

it has taken over the world

buy buy buy

and do not stop

anything but stop!

billboards scream in your sleep

use buy use buy use buy

consume churn

burn guzzle

over and over

rattle rattle rattle around your head

you get drunk

of too many options

row after row after row after row

you walk and turn

and walk and turn another corner

in this mad

consuming world

drunk drunk

drunk of too much

too much!

rattle rattle rattle in your stomach

what are we buying?

do YOU know what you are buying?

Yes, we know everything

we are enlightened

we are informed

the labels tell the honest truth with its

detailed and well-chosen scientific language

we feel safe and informed

they even throw in a few

soothing words:

discounts

free samples

buy and win

and two for the price of one

bigger and better

exclusive

instant

and express

genuine

original

odourless

and guaranteed

inspired

professional

great value

and be moved

because you’re worth it

and you are number one!

ah, i get happy and more assured

i read twice

just to make sure

yes,

they do indeed say:

our products are good

see for your yourself!

we even turned to whole foods 

whole grain

extra grain

reduced fat

2 percent fat

low fat

no fat

bio friendly

bio-degradable

eco-enhanced

extra vitamins and minerals

high GI and lots of anti-oxidants

organic, free range and handpicked

unmodified and no MSG

no cholestrol

no sugar

no dairy

no wheat

no meat

everything

and nothing

rattle rattle rattle in your mind

your conscience tells you,

wait, reconsider, don’t be a consumerist fool

but you don’t listen

you just buy buy buy

queues can be long

prices can go up

credit crunch might crush

inflation rates rocket

stock exchange quiver and tremble

shake and rumble

consume consume consume!

a raging fire into the long hours of the night

rattle rattle rattle with all its might

stop! stop! stop

we consume

guzzle energy we do not need

energy we only imagine

in colours of tasty and luxurious inebriation

drink drink drink

till you can’t anymore

till i can’t anymore

you think it is you frame your needs

ah! it is they, the invisible they, that frame your needs

by seductive slogans cajoling you

flattering your buying power

you think YOU have the power

oh no! it is they that  have the buying power

buying your soul

and throwing it to the dogs!

Street Woman

Street Woman

she sneaks between the joints

she moves between the cracks

she jumps over the lines

she sniffs, she breathes the sliced clarity of this reality

she pushes through the dark alleys

always on the prowl

always on the lookout

looking forward and ahead

through the glimmer of oil-spills

she sees the ancestors of the streets

through the cracks in the pavements

she smells the verdant memory of forsaken forests
she is the street woman
her soul feels the rhythm of the unrest

her loins beat with the pulse of the shifting tar

she sneaks between the joints

she moves between the cracks

she jumps over the lines

through dark pools she walks

and still she sees what is over there

in her lies
the wildness
and
the innocence

call her child

call her witch

call her the free roamin' bitch

like a feral cat

she weaves her way through dark and light

sometimes seeing, sometimes blind

she winds her tread over the uncertainties of skin and mind

stitching together the scattered remnants of ecstasy still found

in the pristine crevices of the heart

on the thought of unconditional love

shakespeare once wrote Love is not love which alters / when it alteration finds / or bends with the remover to remove / Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark / that looks on tempests and is never shaken  

it says something quite beautiful but it is rather lost in idealism that smells of suspect romanticism.

so now i start thinking of it - unconditional love.

to love

without conditions

without face

without fluid body

without beauty

without heart

without smell

without appeal or allure

without sound

without frown

without desire

without form

we love within conditions, even if it is at times such perfect imperfect conditions

there is no way that can i love unconditionally - no no NO!

unconditional love has no skin

no touch

no feel

no drunkeness

no fire

no thirst

no animal

no madness

no intoxification

no instinct

what WHAT

WHAT

do i want to do with such love?

uhm!?

the You

the I

are a condition that throbs with

conditional breathing

conditional blood

conditional sensuality

conditional hormonality

can i love the You unconditionally?

can you love the Me unconditionally?

free of space?

devoid of time?

can i love

the You without that look

the You without that depth of questing living

the You without voice

without skin

without head

without existence

then only can i love the You

 - unconditionally -

when the You and the I

have stopped

existentualising

consciousnessificationising

and do i want that?

do I REALLY want to love unconditionally?

no, not me.

we are too alive to live unconditionally

to love unconditionally

i might have no religion

i might have no eternity

i might have no definition for what love is

but i have dependence on

my essense as

living being

i have sense

and

i have need

and that makes me out of love

with unconditional love

i will be liar

i will be charlatan

if i announce love to function unconditionally

  

unconditional love is that love

for the blind romantic idealists

 - save their souls –

that love for the dedicated religious fanatics

 - save their souls too !

give me rather love full of groping

and precarious conditions

i want to get drunk

on an overflow of 

strivingly changing tempestuous temperamentality

i want to get lost and found in such 

finely cut imperfect conditions

to be able to love within the bounds of conditions

means much more than loving in the limbo-istic space of unconditionalilty

i'll celebrate conditional love

on condition

that it is a love that acknowledges its limits

its un-eternity

so that we do not cling,

do not mould

love into an unfathomable pit of unconditions.

conditions is ultimately

what makes us love and live.