Shopping to Excess

Sunday , almost Advent

urban urchins, Doric divas,

Rudolph idlers, Facebook fiends,

from tenements and tower blocks

all descend on the city:

- to shop.

Fists full of credit cards,

Christmas cowboys heft heavy bags

of prospective presents on a Wild West

main drag, rolling with sweat.

A thrashing throng of thrusting limbs

Swims amid the thrum of swarming

Shoppers fighting for attention

From seemingly numb checkout girls.

Yuletide cheer from carol singing ,

Sally Army – brassy jazz, distant Andean

Pan pipes all drowned out by ringing

And kerchinging  of a thousand cash tills.