In Woolies

A small boy cries, bird calling into the air.
I’m heart helped by his flower delicate face,
bamboo smooth then raw as meat,
his emotions entirely there.

Mums are preoccupied, abundance is a list.
Brows creased, they don’t look up,
their beauty worry worn.

I like the Muzak, whistle along,
wide eyed as a canary.
One aisle is traffic jammed.
and a little old man
waits like a garden gnome.
There should be dancing, the music's jaunty,
but no, only muted ‘excuse me’s’
as trolleys clash.

Done, my machine says
“Thank you for shopping at....”
and slots out cash.
The plastic bags just hold.
The doe eyed shop assistant,
graceful as a minaret
and watchful for thievery:
smiles a goodbye.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: Note: Woolies, slang for Woolworths, Australian supermarket chain.

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: Dylan Thomas, T.S Eliot, Stevie Smith, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Rilke, Holderlin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Gregory Corso, Alan Ginsberg, Phillip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Ferlinghetti, Tony Hoagland, Ezra Pound, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning, Petra Whiteley, Blake, Thomas Hardy, Syvia Plath, Pablo Naruda, Lorca, Cole Porter, A.E Cummings, Walt whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Les Murray, Gig Ryan, Edward Dorn, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney.