I dip back into city life every once in a while, friends, over-priced coffees and craft beer do have their pull on me still. I did a little experiment during my usual solitary street wandering in London last month: take note of all the commercial messaging, fragments of conversations and impressions I encounter in the city and write a quick poem out of them. The amount of vacuous commercial violence that invaded my inner peace was something that I had grown unaccustomed to. Living in a small seaside town and working in an ecovillage thankfully has eliminated much of these consumerist pressures but I still at times crave the vibrancy, diversity and energy of large cities. Whenever I do however reengage with that longing, I end up feeling just as empty and vacuous as the messages I come across. A line from a recent sustainability forum I went to echoed in my head as I tried to maintain calm: Happy people do not shop.
Mind that child, stuffed with ice-cream and unattainable dreams.
What part of this world is left to share,
A coffee attendant's sipping coke at 6 in the morning blank stare.
averted gazes, Benugo delivers, please give a dime/damn charity fundraisers.
Tremoring morning hangovers, anxiety-fuelled leftovers,
which outfit will make today less bitter, £13 sock bargains, dirty rivers,
up to 50% less, this inner space quivers,
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