Thursday Evening
The screen glows a soft
light not white or blue but off
gray flickers, chases
my thoughts out the door
so I sit vacant waiting
for someone to say
the next meaningful
thing about this or that sale
or needful product.
I scratch at my nose.
I sneak a peek at your eyes
half open, aslant
as you rest your head
on the courdoroy couch back
despite the dust puffs
whenever someone
moves. My feet still ache after
walking home with you.
October 16, 2014 4:10 PM
Without spending, the economy will stagnate. We need to spend so others can earn. But of course, spend on useful things.
ReplyDeleteThere is not much risk of spending stopping any time soon. There is no way to get agreement on which things are needful and which other things are frivolous. There is little chance that people will get uniformly conscious anytime soon. Anyone who really seeks this discipline of minimal spending has his or her work cut out. Big practice or else uncomfortable due to not enough money. And yet on our TV there are shows about living beyond civilization - many of them with different slants on the practice. Some are shows about just doing it. Some are shows about having to in some doomsday near future. This is on the minds of a great many people.
DeleteMinimal spending is a mindful practice. I so long to practice it. I keep failing. I keep trying.
ReplyDeleteI don't spend that much and have found that over the decades you get huge clutter anyway. I tend to wear the same things all the time and if I am in charge eat the same things too. Occasionally something changes and then things settle back down and the new thing is around all the time. It is helpful I am like this because I then start writing poetry and it stays around all the time too. When I hook up with a woman, then that is an all the time proposition too. This seems connected to love or attachment but it may be a form of autism instead. I wax in and out on the social thing and lately am happier alone.
DeleteI was wondering why they look so stiff. Any idea?
ReplyDeleteIt's a posed picture. It shows somebody's intent to communicate something. I don't know what. I couldn't find an image closer to my poem's sentiment though I think I posed my people like this: the man is at one end draped a bit across the arm, leaning away from his wife who is in the middle, head across the midline resting on the couch back with her legs up and folded toward the other arm. Her right arm is braced on a couple pillows sort of akimbo, forming a tripod with her upper body. The couch itself is brown broad ribbed corduroy and the room is older, cluttered and all is a bit dusty. The tv as in this image is on. I tried to find that and couldn't.
DeleteWow, that's uncanny.
DeleteI have a further contribution. The husband has just been ordered to give her a foot massage.
DeleteThat won't happen with this couple but the part where she had asked (again) is part of their ritual.
DeleteYes, they have shoes on.
Delete