Retail

[newtothis]

I love it and hate it. At least it pays the bills...


All sorts, they are.
Mostly big, but some small.
Small enough to make you grin with
All the condescension and adoration you have
Within your dog-tired, shattered self . Adorned in smiles
and polyester, these can do no wrong
(other than the yanking and sniveling and running and wailing of course).
Others? not so inspiring.
Rather the opposite, if you want to know.
Because, underneath the multitude of coat hangers, sensors, and stitches,
And beneath the folds of skin, blood, and muscle,
Are famished beasts with no beauty to temper their appetites.
They call their manna, “retail therapy,”
Which everyone knows is another name for the
“I think my husband is cheating on me and
Now I must fritter all his money away” syndrome. Or maybe it is the
“I think I’m fat, so make me pretty now!” virus.
Either way, the beast devours its food
In the same amount of time it took Clinton to “not have sexual relations with that woman”:
Forty five minutes, give or take.
And once they are finished, they are satisfied,
Until they get home, of course, to find their creditors,
Or husbands, (whichever you prefer) are staying late
At their workplaces once more or
,even better, (at least for the sales associates as we are called… although
Sometimes I think a more appropriate name would be predatory wasps)
Are in bed with some other whore of a housewife.
In any case, they always return,
greedy for more rations from Heaven,
(or China).

[thespearkid]

This is the style for you. This poem features some of my favorite images I've ever seen you write and it presents them in such an accessible fashion that I often find it difficult to stifle a grin or chuckle while reading. It started off a little bland, to be honest. It just seemed as if it were an everyman piece about hating your job but once "retail therapy" came in, the poem took on a much more clever turn. Everything after the Bill Clinton line is gold. You take these really sad stories of women shopping to try and please their cheating husbands or to satisfy their low self-worth... and you make fun of them! In a way, it's humorously bitter and it reminds me of you so well (it takes all this stuff that's seething below it and throws a big, happy, sarcastic smile over it).

Very good.

[The Personist]

I agree with everything Dion says, to an extent. I think this works nicely, but there are moments where you get carried away and could cut back on some verbiage. For instance, "(at least for the sales associates as we are called...although/Sometimes I think a more appropriate name would be predatory wasps)" feels awkward and clunky. I think you could cut it down to something like: "at least to the sales associates, as they called as predatory wasps," or at least somethign similar where the words didn't feel needless. It was an exhausting parenthetical to get through, and, like my own overblown ones, was a little TOO long. I was out of breath by the end. We both have the same issue with using too many words where we don't need them; that's my principal issue with this. It's really good, though.

[newtothis]

Thanks for the great advice guys.