Shopping Mall in Queens

In the quaintest part of Queens,
a shopping mall brings people to the streets,
risen from a parking lot
like a daisy springing from between sheets of concrete.
The Burroughs blood put on their coats
(the winter’s stayed too long this year)
and flow into its stores
as they are filled with hope.
One thousand Jobs!
One thousand lives begin anew!
They come from dust,
but dust from where such flowers grew.
Flowers satin, silk, and plastic white,
they grow great leaves and stretch into the sky.
And Greenwich village stands outside and sneers.
“End the processed life,” they cry,
and they neglect to hear inside,
a baby’s laugh, a father’s relieved sigh.
And the evil of our blessing
hums in a factory in unknown lands.
We know so little of the world,
but the ignorant and lost deserve to smile,
and in the dark we dive and search for pearls,
but marvel at the ocean all the while.

© 2010 Alan Bowles

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Alan Bowles is a delivery boy in central Texas who is looking for a change in his career. He has been writing poetry seriously for less than a year, but thinks it’s pretty nifty. He is also in the works of writing several films, but has a hard time finishing them because of his ADHD (Good thing poems are short.)