Get Shot

Wandering the retail world,

Shops, streets, malls.

Coming across cool,

Seeing and being seen.

Using up leisure.

Searching for pleasure.

Meeting friends, lovers, rivals

Prowling alone.

The temples of consumption beckon,

Feeding dreaming, triggering imagining.

Alluringly the windows link

Longing with what’s on sale.

Plate glass protects, enhancing,

Raising status, hyping “value”.

“Look! Don’t touch. For that you must

Come inside.”

Plate glass reflects, shimmering.

What we see is not just the theatre behind

But the surface – caught and thrown back,

Flickering, changing as we pass.

Plate glass reveals the mannequins,

Aloof, androgynous, alien,

Outragous, seductive.

Motionless they pose, caught in some high drama

Oblivious of the moving, living throng.

Haughtily they project Sex,

Aspiration, Status, Recognition,

The keys to acceptance by any group we envy,

Promising a passport to happiness, success, real style

Provided that

We Buy.

John Baxter

Boots for walking