In the New Dream
robots disguised as this or that nation state
all looking at me
peeping in my windows
clogging my email spam filters
trafficking counterfeit Fuller Brushes
I ask ‘em why they go to the trouble
we’re all robots here
no need to put on costumes and stuff
and then
I’m watching a TV program
about the renewing powers of ritual
I don’t like it
I yell at the screen
I breathe fire all over the emptiness and arbitrariness and tediousness of ritual
of course
the learned presenter on the screen
knows I’m right
knows I can’t go unpunished
fixes me with a basilisk glare
the walls around me fly away
steroid abusers in matching uniforms rush in from all sides
to pound and pummel me
the whole thing live streamed
you see
we go through this rigmarole
same time every year
and then
after a break
I spend the rest of my 360
as a freelance nation state
pulling on the guise of this or that robot
peeping in people’s online transaction spheres
playing impromptu synth sax instrumental cover versions
of whatever national anthems
I think will lure people out of their bunkers
into a corny old dark forest
of fairy tale’n’myth
where we can all go crazy
tear off our job selves
all for a crisp monthly fee
live it up
before the work maw
gobbles up every last morsel
of you
and me
not even bloody skeletons left
which is impressive
at some point
another Orson Welles shows up
and eats-
