LeftExchange
Synergy Writing Contest ~ Poetry Entry
Authors's note: Many of my poems were written in the 70's, when a lot of us were seriously experimenting with alternative lifestyles (the 'counterculture' versus the 'death culture'): 'voluntary poverty' was in vogue, a disdain for the rich and all things bourgeois was rampant (e.g. "everything is free when you steal it from the bourgeoisie"). The Vietnam War still raged on until 1975. The Watergate scandal deepened our distrust of capitalist-controlled government. The 'Disco Era' had not yet begun to make us "unconscious". This poem is an attempt to show, with a little humor, how we straddled two opposing worlds with both youthful zeal and seemingly utter futility.
The Grocery List
Look. I know what you want
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Poetry Entries........Synergy Contest Rules........Synergy Home
...It’s always the same
I go buy all this food
...And come home
And there’s still nothing to eat
...I just spent twenty dollars
To replenish the staples
...That always seem to be there
In the pantry getting dusty
What damn good is five pounds
...Of flour or vegetable oil
How about a steak for chrisake
Something I can sink
...These hungry teeth into
Even now a tv dinner would do
I know it’s all junk food
But I’m getting so healthy
...It’s making me sick
I need something that will stick
...To my ribs...like ribs
Not Cream Of Wheat’s Rastas
Smiling slavishly at me
It’s Cream Of Wheat Weather alright
...More like a decade of poverty
That’s getting me down
I wish to eat the rich
...Talk about ‘junk food’.
