Come inside the Mall,

the lights are bright and everything

is super, cheap and worth the risk,

of the stampede, of the pushing

and shoving, the charge of wallet and purse brigade,

the scattering of Stilettoes, the handbags

seized and used as battering rams,

the abuse towards the sales people, that’s O.K.,

the abuse towards your fellow man, that’s O.K.,

worth a black eye, that’s O.K. man,

as long as you get your 50 inch television

for fifty Dollars, quid, Euros, nicker less,

the money saved still more

than the poor sod who made it for you earned.

Black Friday, media scrum to get the picture of the masses

at play,

adding to the fuel, adding to the fire

of consumption and being consumed, I shake

my head in despair at what we have become,

Black, Black Friday.

Ian D. Hall 2016