Black Friday holds her sway over zombified shoppers,
arms outstretched, into the crowded jostle
that marks her prominent parade of people
heaped into American shopping malls
heaped into Walmarts and Targets and Macy’s, oh my!
Hip hip Hooray, and fill up with goods.

Christmas opens her doors early in America,
shining as a beacon far enough away
to light the piles beneath your decked out tree,
skimming the illusory surface of
nothing is ever enough.

Load up your carts good people:
evergreen candles to scent your home Christmas,
iPads, now minis, Mister Coffee’s like Keurigs,
all of these things that you don’t really need,
promoting your spending, feeding your greed.
In the end game,
all that matters,
is that he who dies with the most toys wins.

Wake up!

The mall falls silent
while shoppers consider
illogical trips through the aisles of the store
where there are still flecks left of deal great galore.

Black Friday insists that there is nothing more—

doling out her ever present persuasion,
safe in the knowledge
of human greed.

Last year’s numbers topple beneath best ever sales.
The system remains intact.
Black Friday curtsies her smile.

Brenda Warren 2012

Process Notes: I don’t shop Black Friday. Mostly though, I just don’t shop. Crowds do me in, Black Friday crowds would crush me. The system has control over our spending. We need to wake up, collectively.

Visit The Sunday Whirl.

When beauty becomes business
parameters are set
proliferating pretty ideas
that turn us into pawns
running off to purchase products
designed to bust us out of who
we really are
to create who we can be,

Ta-da!

The mirror hides our real faces
cast aside and silent,
sorry they were never enough,
trampled upon by societal ideals
as needling procedures
entice our easy vain pride
filling in our laughter’s life
eating up its lines.

When beauty becomes business,
daughters desire more than they are.
Society teaches our children enhancement.
Find a mask that covers what’s wrong.
Women and children buy it:
lock, stock, and help us belong,
shooting for media envisioned standards.
Ready. Aim. Fire.

Pinching a pretty profit,
industry eats original face.

(unless we stop feeding the beast)

Brenda Warren 2012

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Post-argument pain beats through hollow hearts
like birds behind bars fluttering nowhere.
Leaping words cascade into rocky landscapes
and dry woods rise between eyes.

Although in the distance
a brook’s current glistens deliverance,
phantom pain persists, pulling its chest up,
righting its wronged regality,
denying deliverance into love’s sweet flow.

Eventually, the current rubs smooth words
hanging out there, all craggy and sharp
wishing they’d never been said.

New moments peer up through earth in the wood,
shining there, lighting the dark.

Brenda Warren 2012

Visit The Sunday Whirl.

Process Notes:  The first line originally read “phantom pain;” I changed it to “post-argument pain” to provide a richer context.

A tumultuous scramble of eggs
dances on a Teflon shore.
Sizzling its upbeat charm,
it congeals its epicurean fate.

The toaster’s wrath glows until dark lines
score bread with images
of keys and fences,
blanketed with buttery swellings
that slowly seep into its porous depths.

Coffee’s bitterness flees
beneath cream’s heavy comfort
as breakfast enables morning
to dispel rotten dreams,
opening potential’s door
with a slow creeping smile.

Brenda Warren 2012

Visit The Sunday Whirl.