Mega-Mart Rebellion
Mega-Mart Rebellion
by Christopher Barnes
The automatons have broken traits.
A shelf-crammer clicked out light.
Discrepancies don’t shift.
Impersonal manikins tackle the force of argument
Ineffectually becoming a movement. Earless
The Bully’s entrenched behind contrivances.
Tonight I’ll elect to dream – heart-sinking hero
In nauseous unprofitableness behind racks.
Difficult but intriguing. “Mega-Mart” suggests consumerism on a mass scale; “Rebellion” revolution. Who’s rebelling? I say us, against “the automatons,” “impersonal manikins” we’ve become in a consumer society. We have “broken traits,” “discrepancies,” human eccentricities that “don’t shift,” aren’t conformable, and therefore are dangerous to the established order, “a shelf-crammer” whose “light,” because of us, has “clicked out” because of too much stuff produced to satisfy too many tastes. We “tackle” consumerism’s “force of argument” that its product is all we need, “becoming a movement,” but “ineffectually.” The shelf-crammer, “the Bully,” is “earless” and “entrenched behind (the) contrivances” it creates. A break. The poem becomes personal. “I” “elect(s) to dream”–give up on the movement and his individual heroism–“heart-sinking…in nauseous unprofitableness behind racks,” the crammed shelves he finds ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable’ to his sense of well-being; allowing a dismal outcome of what we’ve been told we want, turning our values upside down, as the photo indicates.