The cell phones came in colours
Red, silver, blue, white and tangerine,
Twisting or flipping, bricks and sliders
Bought on reviews in a magazine.
Our meetings were a matter
Of weightiest import,
Peering as we did through crowds and chatter,
The first-come holding fort.
Bus and sidewalk calculated,
The hour collectively set;
The painful parking hour-rated,
Each owed the other his word and time in debt.
The attended face, the hoped-for hail-up greeting
And our conclave shall begin,
The bustling crowd concealing
Us as we seek to sate our hunger, somewhere beyond the din.
The DVDs were pirated—
Anime, crime, or horror flicks—
At the arcade we’d be riveted
To the Street Fighter control sticks.
Fast food and long conversation;
Suburban philosophers, we discoursed as we’d roam;
Children of imagination
Who’d soon not know this home.
Consumerism meant us nil:
We played, we fought, we wandered wide-eyed
In the sanctuary where we’d hide
From a world confusing, cold and ill.
Whatever the academics write,
They know the buying, not the Being
Of silly youths sincerely seeking out the Light,
Nor the savour of Dreams tasted, however fleeting,
On a breezy, moonlit summer’s night.
Some folks had forums, the square and the temple hall;
We had our great bazaar: the mundane, magic Mall.
Snow to Sand: Poetry, Stories and Musings from Canada, the Caribbean and Ukraine 