The free Wednesday newspaper waits in my mailbox,
a wrapper for advertisements by the shrill ream,
topped by a sheaf of messages from New York
addressed to Occupant, my pet name.
“Valentine Veggies Keep the Heart Beating,”
the newspaper boldly asserts. A perfect story for today,
pushing slow products under the banner of health,
devoid of any taint of controversy.
The news stinks, not of of newsprint but of The Pitch,
the clamorous, incessant pitch for More,
the single story that we can have it all,
all of it cheaper, better, newer, older, all at The Big Store.
How can I give you a valentine,
in these days of the justly foundering empire,
which does not stink of The Pitch,
when every word’s a whore stood out for hire?
The pen I’d write with would promote a music store, a garage,
a sixty-buck-a-night flop house, a politician,
a florist, an endangered species, a college,
a marriage counselor, a crazy god, a mortician,
The paper I’d write on half-visibly reveal
its maker’s repellent acronym, the stamp I’d lick
carry a false, nostalgic portrait
of some simpering Norman Rockwell hick.
We live as a people conquered, our loves
corrupted by the victors’ well-paid flacks.
Their blatant secret police spy in our homes,
leaving the spittle of manipulation like snail tracks
On the sill of every bedroom, every nursery,
cajoling us unceasingly to embrace greed,
to forget truth, ignore our hearts and brains,
supplicate The Big Store to fill prefabricated needs
Until there is nothing to breathe but the pitch,
and virtue’s only a package for some salesman’s vice,
all promises are empty, and we learn,
in self-defense, every slick, dishonorable device –
And naturally suspect our dearest must
(because who does not?) know all the tricks too.
Who can say or hear, without the inner twist
of doubt, or self-doubt, the terrible words, “I love you?”
