The Way We Live Now

The supermarket lights are dim,
the books are ranked along the shelves.
Bestsellers crowd the vege bin,
 
their lurid, new, exotic smells
of vampire lusts or long-dead queens
compete with cabbage. Other aisles
 
show tinned scripts and bulk-buy beans
heaped where they never will be missed.
Covers howl out, ‘Now you’ve seen
 
the series! Come and read the rest!’
Computers hum, but no one knows
where on earth they keep the Proust
 
or when the reps discount the prose,
or onsell Whitman, two bucks off,
or who gives a damn. And so it goes.

 
Mary Cresswell

 
If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Mary Cresswell would be pleased to hear them