The Sound of ...

Hello Kitty, my old friend,
I've come to buy from you again.
Perhaps a hat or pair of mittens
Emblazoned with your waving kitten.
That's the image that you've planted in my brain
    For your gain
By means of ad...vertisements*.
        *US pronunciation: "ADvertisements"

In nauseous dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of potholed stone.
In the halo of a spotlight
I saw a shining can of Bud Light.
As a moth is attracted to a flame
    So my aim
Fixed on that ad...vertisement.

And all around the ad I saw
Ten thousand hawkers, maybe more.
But the tale that each was telling
Was lost amid the others' selling
And their sense and their meaning all were drowned
    By the sound
Of countless ad...vertisements.

"Fools," said I, "do you not know?
Commerce to a cancer grows
When the making of our choices
Confronts a myriad of voices."
But my words in that storm of noise were lost,
    Torn and tossed:
Just one more ad...vertisement.