Visual Verse

This month, visualverse.org ran an autumn competition using the above image. We were away and (due to socialising) I didn’t finish my poem in time to submit it but I thought I would post it here having worked on it a little further.

What are we selling?

we walk from beach to dune
past hue and half and so
the lap of overlapping leaves;
past totem trees, slender and spotted
full and fine of vertical grace;
past tepid stillness of a creek
where drips and ticks
might topple like these glass eyes
(the blue inquiry: buy me? buy me?);
and reflections hang, insipid perfection
striving for the bottom of the surface

and all the while movie machines
and movie merch make advertising
of our mouths. we're programming our children
like LEGO men (and ourselves) to mewl and weep,
to catch the bounty, the phantasmagoric flood
of consumer counters and collection pits

empty plastic heads
and empty beating hearts
striving for the bottom of the surface