Like Mick I’m lost in the supermarket
But they’re all out of personality
I can’t go in to Morrison’s these days
The shelves are emptying of memories.
Did I see Ginsberg behind the parsnips
Looking for a rutabega, finding only swede?
Or Whitman, shuffling amongst the condiments,
Seeking inspiration in a beard that’s full of seeds?
And tall Ted Hughes by the chocolate doughnuts
Full of dark intensity and watching like a hawk?
Now that must be Donald Davie in the Bisto section
With a marinade of verse – maybe he’ll barbecue some pork.
Is that suited Wallace Stevens looking floundered by the deli?
A touch could organise him, but there’s no-one can go near.
And lurking, quite distinctive, by the arcing of his belly
And a box of Choco-Leibniz is Guillaume Appollinaire.
Did I notice tragic Homer in the garden centre yard?
Was that Hardy by the septic tanks, in epic rural strain?
B and Q’s a well of sadness by the metre or the yard
For I never made a thing that lasted longer than the pain.
So we’re all lost in the supermarket
Our bags for life are stuffed with verse we’re hoping we can trade
To leave behind the wonky loves we want to be discounted
For we’re searching for another life that’s ready to be made.
1) Viz. The Clash’s satire of the commercialization of identity “Lost in the Supermarket” on London Calling (1979). The first and last stanzas follow the rhythm of the song.
2) I found the phenomenon of seeing people who look like other people was intensified by the pandemic, especially when proximity and even touch was denied. One day I saw a bloke who looked like Ginsberg, then they were everywhere…
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Stephen A. Linstead
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