Bangladesh - China – Canada – Joe Fresh T&T Can’t
Buy Me Love
my god my job in the global economy
hmmm
let me tell you
i am a simple man
in a corporate cross-global space
living in hotels
eating in restaurants
walking on streets
swamped in urbanity
a soul among millions
Dakka - Beijing - Vancouver
swimming in a swamp of madness
cars and neon signs
airports
and mergers...
this is no marco polo world
no wilderness
no daemons
no wonder
no treasure
no awe
no sirens
not even conquering
for all is conquered
all has conformed
we export and we import now
we own
we buy
we come laden with oil, wet
we come laden with sport shoes and cell phones and
garlic, sweat and grime
we unisex partners, ooooh
come go laden with the same
and call ourselves richer, fairer, peaceable even
tolerant for the effort?
but i
with little to do but open my eyes
i can see
the movers and shakers, banga bazaar
the hawkers on the street sides, wangfujing
the gals in the clothing shops, rideau centre
like myself, existing
paying a bill
watching the world move past them, they
like myself
making a penny
maybe two!
your pennies
my pennies
our role on stage is the same,
i earn a buck or two for two years commitment to a god
job
good god save the world job
you earn a penny or two for each day making sales
god the dollar and all else pales
who knows what next
maybe me no contract
maybe you no thing to sell
we will all have to hunt
for something new to do
our bodies brains on market shelves
oddly godly jobs
in a monolithic certainty
of ocean going freight ships ploughing the waters of
the seven seas
of flares burning through the dark of night above
natural gas wells
of women buried beneath rubble a thousand mourned
of men buried beneath their tons of coal
of zero one zero one zero one
one digital voice
one prophet of truth
commerce
consumption
petroleum
just buy, sell, and ye shall be blest
so we are all the same
sharing this same god
a nice place to be
togetherness
this monolithic certainty of conformity
no doubts about you being some… other
no, no stranger no more
just me
just you
maybe for the first time
i can see the servers in the restaurants in this
foreign land
servers as people
as persons
as close as possible
we are friends
briefly
i must eat
they must make a few dollars
together only for a brief moment
to see if the stranger enjoys the food
myself responding
a tip to him
a tip to her
in english
maybe in what we call chinese
smiling
gesturing
slurping with gusto
holding the cup of hot tea between my hands
grasping the beer glass the man that i must be
smiling
me
them
i pay, my hungers satisfied
they earn, their weekend movie paid for
sex maybe
human contact
film or skin
i smell the taxi drivers
cigarettes dangling from their lips
the smell of beggars
their children holding my arm
i smell the street
women marching arm in arm
sweat of a man tumbling home
and wow so strange
how i see in others
the meaninglessness of their cars
the emptiness behind cosmetics
all so so much oh my god the same everywhere i go
hmmm
my eyes wide
god knows my mouth and our hearts sealed
no threat to our dollars or jobs
clothes behind glass
eyes caged behind frames
hearts boxed behind a disney bill of goods
oh, all these people i am supposed to love
they whiz past
gone somewhere
destinations
far, far away from here
far from this pavement beneath my feet
and wow so strange
i see on the street
men, neatly trimmed hair, legs hurried
long black trench coats fluttering as they dash
their hands busied with digital devices
other men walking briskly together
climbing into air conditioned cars while rickshaws
stream on by
stern, self important
their hands busied with briefcases
far from this pavement beneath my feet...
this pavement beneath my feet...
i stand still on a street corner
grey, polluted sky above
gusting wind tousling my hair
my sanity found in knowing somebody near
even in the smallest way, yes
here i am in Dakka, a concentrated place, yes
here i am in Beijing,
bustling millions, yes
but
here i am with people
some, like the restaurant servers, here together
some, like the men and their briefcases, worlds
apart...
but people all the same
and my heart reaches out...
i think we kid ourselves when we say our career keeps
us going...
if you take away people, even for half a day
if you take away familiarity for several days
we begin to fall apart...
so it is people
contact
association
warmth
this is human life
we live a kind of mirage
believing that our manifestations are our substance...
the sewer cover with a fish pattern, our washed glass
windows,
our machine made gloves...
that this is all our creation
the madness of urbanity
utter destitution in its meaningless
the mirage of false gods…
except…
i think...
these false gods of my modern world
are nothing
for the Venicians loved their Venice
the Mayans their temples
the Algonquin their long houses
and the Greeks their Sirens
these false gods of my modern world
are nothing
for i have you
i have the rickshaw man working for his children
i have the lipsticked woman selling dumplings and her
smile to her friends
i have
how meaningless i am...
…provided love.
