A poem I wrote just a few days ago (please see the YouTube version if you have time and comment on which you prefer, I’d like to know).
I went to a mall here in S. Korea. Walking through rows and rows of apartment blocks. Then, the stores, the same coffee shops, the same grocery store aisles, the same look on everyone’s faces - as back home. Or could have been Santiago, San Francisco or Salamanca. But here is was in Mokpo, South Korea.
I’ve traveled a lot, been privileged in my few allotted years here on planet earth. But during those decades, I’ve witnessed the world becoming more and more the same bland blob of melted potted shiny metal. Airports make my head spin, sometimes you forget where you are, they all look, feel, taste, think the same. But it is the same everywhere if you care to notice (most don’t, they get caught up in the tinsel, the wrapping). Beaches, same beach chairs, same beers and fat, red skinned people all along them - whatever coast. I could go on. Read, watch the poem.
What do you think?
The End Of Poetry
Is it just me or
do you too notice how
this whole planet is
fast becoming
the same everywhere?
The same endless
treeless streets,
the same bland rows
of shops and apartments,
the same endless aisles
and duty free shops and
fast food courts?
The same 3 or 4 coffee joints.
The same 3 or 4 makes of cars.
The same 3 or 4 dance tunes.
The same 3 or 4 channels.
The same 3 or 4 of
everything, everywhere
with minor variations meant
to confuse you into thinking,
what you are experiencing is
one of a kind.
And meanwhile behind the curtain
the same money grinding machine
goes cha-ching! cha-ching!
grinding everything down into
the same thing,
the same thing that makes
the moolah keep rollin’ in.
Even the faces (to me anyway)
give away the game,
looking all the same in
their same happy or sad way
as they mechanically
march through life
faces glued to phones.
And just wait until
they get around to cloning us.
It’ll be the death of poetry.
For then,
how’s anyone gonna ever
figure out
who they are
or what anything means?
The End Of Poetry