After a satellite image
appeared on Apple Maps
showing Nessie
the Loch Ness Monster in her
(or "his" or "its"
or maybe "their"
since the beast could have
multiple rational
and free-thinking heads)
first major sighting
for more than a year
which is the longest gap
between confirmed reports
since 1925
businesses all over Scotland
are preparing marketing campaigns
around that creature of myth
and late-night binge drinking.
Naturalist Adrian Shine
sees cynicism behind this
direct marketing campaign
saying "The whole point
about the Loch Ness Monster
is that it has not been promoted
in this official manner."
No doubt that commercial
interests have exploited
real people's holy days
exaggerated and even invented
seasonal marketing mascots
but some of these
crass adaptations
have been reabsorbed
into the culture
even becoming
folk heroes along the way.
But in reality
marketing is nothing new
for regular people
who tell stories
that increase social cohesion
while limiting independent thought
or condone new stresses
and new diseases
in their fellow men and women
(which may or may not
include themselves)
trading one means
of feeding a family for another
while relying on
real-time daily mythmaking
through the sincere and unified
adoption of new routines
that "fingers crossed"
are self-fulfilling prophesies
that will make those
fuzzy daydreams come true.
This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.
