 for sale – foto by smith we walk city streets. shop after shop filled with manufactured goods hung wall to wall, floor to ceiling in baited display saying “buy me,” “need me,” “want me,” “take me home with you,” “let me make your life brighter faster better cleaner easier lovelier sexier more selfish.” store after store filled with things made by the poor for the rich to sell to the rest. street after street, city after city, nation after nation – endless things crowd together, displayed, for sale. for every one thing sold, 999 remain lost and alone hanging on display walls, lying in display cases, forgotten in remaindered bins. there are more hanging handbags for sale than there are hands on earth, more for-sale shoes than there are feet. warehouses of watches. plastic dishes. dog collars. letter openers. women’s clothes. extruded plastics. rubber chickens. toothpicks. floss. lip gloss. jars of mayonnaise. forgotten plays. gew gaws. coleslaws. bracelets. rings. things. bleach. dead meat. strange treats. repeat. life on earth is set up on the premise that enough outside things can fill our inside emptiness. feel sad? buy ! glad? buy ! lonely? buy ! scared? buy ! insecure? buy ! bye? buy ! by? BUY ! humans are obsessed with stuff. it’s all they do. they make stuff. grow stuff. transport stuff to market. make markets to lure folk to to sell stuff to. transport folk to & from markets. feed and board buyers and sellers. collect, clean and process human waste & trash generated by this gathering of stuff to be bought and sold. then they hire thugs called police and army to protect the stuff before, during, and after. humans have this history of trading, buying, selling, swapping, collecting, protecting – and if none of those work, then taking by force. we spend a lot of time on our outsides, not much on our within.  market stall – foto by smith |