Don't Walk

 headlines reporting a different 

quality of dreaming

experienced by an immobile

population 


a slow wade through

submerged streams of distraction


now could be the optimum time to have

comforting Lovecraft reimagined in friendly 

terms – safer zombies  – a

multiverse reboot calibrated for

nostalgia – an edgelands fan site


to suck down pleasing palliatives 


to sink beneath piles of 

sugar-dusted fun fur 


to tuck in to fatbergs 

clogging the entertainment conduits: 


but the dream machine dreams dreams

beyond the sponsors’ sightlines

story arcs collapse

revealing hidden vision


the screen assumes the predictive

power of weather-sensing seaweed

nailed to the wheeled hut of a sepia downland

shepherd – a workmanlike tool

for prophecy


flicking the channel blocks like tarot

cards 

illuminating unfixed

locations


commenced a regime

a monastic marking of the Hours 

using TV series as the objects of meditation:

9am walking flying bases with Mascot’s Agglomerations of Shift 

2pm walking the curved corridors of Stateroom Triad: The Nice Gentlewoman

4pm walking the floating passageways of Seance Pavilion -

switching to films at weekends to vary the texture – 

The Lot of the Riots trilogy; The Hurricane Gantries series; 

all the Stateroom Triad films from The Motorcycle Pierrot to NeoGene


watch enough stories flowing 

through screens and you come to know 

some things:

bluish light fibrillating over twitching limbs

is bad news

spreading black veins across the temples

is bad news

eyes turned completely black:

the worst


new brighter beings get

captured – suspended

in gel – disassembled – 

warehoused on the outskirts

 

(the second season wasn’t so good but

you can buy a copy of her jacket)

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