Seven billion souls all yearn for purpose.
This would be a problem, if we weren’t dumb
By birth or by choice - whatever. The surplus
Cash pettifoggers extract also numbs

Which is smartly done - they engineer meaning
And control demand, with self-policing
Networks of status and distinction. Feelings
Proscribed with junk, we forgive their fleecing.

So long as we receive our daily dose,
We can touch the sublime from guttering.
Commodities sold are the grandiose
Delusions of addicted lives. Stuttering

Through days, years, decades: stuck on repeat.
Shopping or heroin? The main thing? We bleat.