City Of Things Poem by Hans Ostrom

In the city of things, people
defer to heaps, piles, and stacks
of plastic and alloyed molded
things. The people are stopped
by stacked boxes, so they go
around or give up and sit
and lie. The people agree

to purchase, to take on and put
on a quota of things, a pre-set
set of things. The people
pray to things with the aid
of Thing Preachers in thing-
choked halls and littered
amphitheaters. Austere

and escetic people are shunned,
fined, scorned, and watched.
They're forced to wear
designated denigrating things.

It's quite thing, the city
of things, where over-abundance
is unlimited, loved, and legislated.
I got cut in the city
by an angular thing
I bumped into. I said I
am sorry to the thing.