Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye.

by Clive Matson

Hello, Paradise.  Paradise, Goodbye.
part Tewenty–One [potato chip]

Light embraces everything everywhere the same.

Into the market for a potato chip,
forty flavors one cabinet, fifty the next,
in the aisle four hundred fifty.

Ice cream, same count. Same count, water.  Milk.
Wine, doubled count. Butter.  Vitamins.  Power bars.
Four hundred fifty
and one chip speaks to you.  To me.  Nifty.

Profusion confusion illusion contusion
one tinge infused turmeric saline blue
perfect for the individual.  Perfect for me.  For you.                                                   No waste.

Multinationals tune to your special taste.

“Say it loud.  Aren’t you proud ?
Look what we’re handing down.”

Two hundred thousand years later
flavors today of course fresh
and will mesh
with our eyes, nose, tongue-out stroll through the aisle.
Married to our senses.

Saxophone riffs circle the ridge and blow through trees.

Ah, jeeze, so what!  It’s a potato chip.
One salty, tasty tidbit of capitalism,
one splotch on the big table.
Don’t trip!
Slippery slope ably greased with jizm.
Someone else’s jizm.
Feed me.  Feed me tastes so I won’t grok my own.
Clang!  Your entire being knows you’re alone.
One among four hundred fifty and no touch.
Face, chest, arms, hands, thighs, legs,
no leisure, no contact, no bone
skin-covered galaxies inside are opaqued.

“Loneliness the ache too deep to grasp.”

Motherfuck.  They got you.  Got me.  We’re marketeered.
The tsunami caresses our sweet spot
and we splash down in the river of tears.

Stay healthy.  Work soft.  Be tender.  Get fit.  Stay woke.  Be cool.

Sparkling-clear TV screens rotate on wheels
behind wheels beyond wheels before wheels
actors, singers spinning, waving, caressing gently
0your fragile, sensitive wrinkles
each one more intimate
and which one will reveal how to be more
beautifully yourself ?
The rich, the healthy, the happy
realized people doing exactly
what they want
so you can too.
A siren song
calling up your tender G-spot place,
a smiling, sly, exquisite face
proffers one secret desire.  Yours.  Mine.

Every such spirit is terrifying.
Ein jeder Angel ist schrecklich.

Feed me.  Feed me tastes so I won’t grok my own.

Through cracks in the mirror
you hear the undertone whisper,

“Aw, soon you’ll feel better, honey.
Zone out and give them your money.”
Tears stream your cheeks and you laugh, laugh.

They’re acting, Dude.
They’re paid to look like that
so you will try that look.

Why, why do you feel you’re a marketing experiment ?
Because, because you are a marketing experiment.
Turn around
and I’m next.  Marketeered.

Happy go lucky, singing a song.
How could we go so terribly wrong ?

In one geologic instant everything gelled.
Thirteen-point-eight billion years
we learned how psychology works.
We learned how to sell.
                                      Take it to the banks,
marketers, who would have figured it out
without
your help, Freud.  But thanks.

“Say it loud.  Aren’t you proud ?
Look what we’re handing down.”

Ably greased with jizz.  Someone else’s jizz.

“Peril in the garden.”  The garden in peril.

Hello, paradise.  Paradise, goodbye.