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Pop up Shops Are Everywhere
Posted: 25 September 2016
Word Count: 167
Summary: I'm really busy with a work project for the next ten days so thought I'd not be able to contribute but this is something (unfinished) I've been working on which seems to fit the brief a bit.
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Pop-up Shops Are Everywhere
We’d set off for the shops together
little and big hands linked as one.
Every day in every weather
jumping puddles, having fun.
Crackled flagstones led us further
through the dragon factory smoke
potions held in pop tin flagons
sure protection from the soak.
Cakes were waiting at the bakers
bread and scones and speckled buns.
Treasure bagged for scoffing later
‘keep your crusts to feed the swans.’
Lines of corpses hung together
tattooed with the butcher’s stamp.
Shudder but then search the sawdust
for the spell to banish damp.
Now the factory has been plundered
all that’s left a drab parade.
Trees are growing through the facades
where we shopped and hid and played.
Take the car to park and ride
no interaction in the store.
The magic of our childhood wonder
washed away forever more.
With just one click the world’s for sale,
we’re ruled by advertising flair
but in small towns I look around and
pop-up shops are everywhere.
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Comments by other Members
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 michwo at 17:07 on 25 September 2016
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Jane,
I'm impressed as usual. I do so like the old-fashionedness of this and I mean that as a compliment.
I can just imagine you shopping with your mum and jumping over those puddles! And I still remember stone flagons of ginger beer before they started putting it in plastic bottles.
Have you heard of a Berlin-based Jewish poetess who published her first poems in the thirties, Mascha Kaléko?
She was born in a place which is now in Poland in 1907 and died in Zurich in 1975 where she's buried in the Jewish cemetery. Like you she was sensitive and witty. A few years ago I translated twenty of her poems including the one I'm sending you as another example of old-fashionedness, "Grocer's Shop" or "Kolonialwaren Handlung" in the German original:
Grocer’s Shop
We find the same old thing in each small town:
Displayed for all to see jam, semolina, peas,
A man decanting syrup with a frown
And flies that seem to play games with the cheese.
Currants are curious, bat their eyelids at you.
The smell of gherkins makes you wet your lips.
Sweets in tall glass jars, of which there are a few,
Make you remember childhood shopping trips.
Behind the counter stands a woman rosy-cheeked
Whose dumpy hands weigh bags with might and main –
With blue-as-herring eyes she information leaks:
The price of flour has gone up yet again.
Keep up the good work. I can't fault you.
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 Cliff Hanger at 18:41 on 25 September 2016
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How kind you are Michael and how interesting that there are similarities with pop up and Kaleko's poem. I'll certainly look her up.
Jane
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 V`yonne at 16:36 on 26 September 2016
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Interesting! :) It's all too true. When we were doing the Newgate St Festival we were talking to retailers and two of the shops have closed within a few weeks 
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 FelixBenson at 10:23 on 27 September 2016
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Exemplary rhyming! And yes, I think we can all identify with the sentiment here. It seems like a different world when my Gran and I walked along the high street, collecting her pension and then visting each shop in turn, bakers, butchers, greengrocers, getting all the gossip....
I love this stanza
Cakes were waiting at the bakers
bread and scones and speckled buns.
Treasure bagged for scoffing later
‘keep your crusts to feed the swans.’
And I think these lines are so accuate
Take the car to park and ride
no interaction in the store.
The magic of our childhood wonder
washed away forever more.
With just one click the world’s for sale,
we’re ruled by advertising flair
Excellently done.
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 Mickey at 14:55 on 27 September 2016
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Jane
This is absolutely brilliant! What I find to be so reassuring is that my frustrations and concerns with this 'Park&Ride' world are shared by others (I always assumed I was just a grumpy old sod!) I like the underlying impression of a slower lifestyle. It's interesting to note how this poem has the same 'then and now' feel as the one I posted. How did we allow marketing to so affect our lives (and don't start me on sell-by dates!!!) Fabulous poem. Thank you
Mike
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Cliff Hanger at 16:29 on 27 September 2016
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Thanks everyone,
I'm so thrilled it reminds you of your gran, Kirsty because it's a memory of going to the shops with my granny (who loved to go to the bakers for a meringue - she was very fat but very lovely). It's strange that when I write something I feel is about movement it always rhymes. It's not a conscious choice, just comes out that way.
Jane
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 Jojovits1 at 19:32 on 29 September 2016
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I have so many similar memories of going down the town with my Nanny. It was a fairly small town and everyone knew everyone else. I miss those days.
Wonderful, effortless rhyming Jane.
Treasure bagged for scoffing later
‘keep your crusts to feed the swans.’
I can almost hear her saying it to you :-).
The magic of our childhood wonder
washed away forever more.
Oh, I do hope not.
Wonderful poem. I loved it.
Jo
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FelixBenson at 21:20 on 29 September 2016
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Ah it's shopping with my Gran that I was thinking of too. Happy, happy times. Never more content that with our Grans.
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 Bazz at 14:31 on 30 September 2016
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Love the mood and rhythm of this, Jane. There's a poignant divide between the past and the present, and the gulf of change between. The strange shadow of progress... I think everyone would respond to the feelings here.
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