Agora-phobia – from the Greek –
‘Fear of the Market-Place’
Is not such fear well-founded?
As private space contracts
Privacy erodes
And ‘markets’ seek concession in the soul?
Everything and everyone
Now seems ‘up for sale’
Linger long in the market square –
Perhaps you seek a human
Conversational face-to-face?
You can wind up as a ‘character’
In someone’s ‘Social’ Media
Solipsistic Blog.
‘Influencers’ like sniffing dogs
Add you to their snippets –
A morsel in a cult of cute self-fiction
Perhaps you are an old intrepid trout?
The ‘flies’ they phish with now
Feathered by a poison hint of fame
Tempt the open-mouthed impulsive minnows
Who fall to worship on the hidden hook
Between pawn-shop and Poundshop
A library lamentably long gone
The Post Office by the arcade
Selling chocolate biscuits and white bread
Also Accusation and False Witness –
See the White Mercedes basking like a shark
Respectably waxed and polished as befits
A dealership in hard drugs?
Now Ancient Rome becomes us –
A city unsafe after dark
Where no-one ventures by night
Whose trading name is not
‘Felonious’
T.V. watches us but does not see
We citizens consumed as programme ‘content’
Though some re-surface as saleable ‘icons’
Their contracts specify ‘Chaos’
The show must go on?
Who is writing the script?
Underlying myth is ever present
However much the moderns say it isn’t
And soon there may be nothing
Left to buy or sell
The world will hold a ‘Closing Sale’ –
‘Outmoded Toxic
Furnishings’ – First Floor
.
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
.