Meditation on Roget’s Paradox of Choice

You have your preferences proclivities
inclinations predispositions
tendencies favorites

You make your    choices
exercising your    free will          your     autonomy
your         volition            your     voice
your         liberty              your     judgment
at your    supermarket

You have options alternatives
you pick what’s to your liking
pick take grab
pick take grab
decide determine opt
decide determine opt
deliberate adjudicate select
pick take grab
you are judge and referee you are umpire
each selection is also a rejection
you accept this avocado               you decline another
repudiate the raspberries            spurn the squash
turn down the turnips                  jettison the jam

Selection is about what you want             what you will
What you wish    what you desire
What you covet   what you crave              what you fancy
What you hanker for
What you yearn for         what you itch for          what you thirst for

Within limits naturally   the limits of your wallet
What does your wallet want
Where does your wallet go
You can wander at will
ogle and fondle
the pure products of Ameriker
but when you get to the register
you must hold up
your end of the bargain

Picture yourself entering plenitude
profusion multiplicity abundance
the heaps the reams the scores the scads
the volume the slew the tons upon tons
the excess the plethora the superfluity
the flood the mountains the piles the surplus
the bonanza the deluge the bevy the surfeit
the oodles the throngs the legions the armies

I must confess
in the easy abundance
I am overwhelmed I am overwhelmed
by the number of whatnots and wares
it is numbing I am numbed by the number of goods
the items all the items the goodly items
it’s daunting dispiriting disheartening
I’m intimidated demoralized debilitated dismayed
unbalanced unsettled unstringed
I’ve abandoned what’s valuable practical compatible
for all that is maximal palpable cashable
the chimera of what’s fashionable collapsible extractable
I expended my rational capital
my basketful of taxable laughable lacrimal capital

On the pure products
I’ve spent my deposits
my days and my dollars
My terrors are boundless
My dreams and my doubt
though both may be groundless
will never average out

$$$upermarket Cento

I’m all lost in the supermarket    I can no longer shop happily

tripping in the fruit     aisle    Falling for her   berry lightness

the burden of debt   as your granny might say   heavy as sin —

the lettuce full and moist with    a fresh spray of mist and neon   my cart wobbles giddily

whispering to the saints in supermarkets

dreaming of your enumerations!    I wander in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans

Everything is fine, will continue to be fine, will eventually  get   even   better as long as the

supermarket does not slip

I’m all tuned in, I see all the programs    I save coupons from packets of tea

When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?

The supermarket does not change except for the better

Note: Certain lines are adapted from writing by Wanda Coleman, Don DeLillo, Alan Gillis, Allen Ginsberg, Juan Felipe Herrera, Mona Van Duyn, and The Clash