She is capitalist progression. And she is stripping down slowly in front of a scant audience, who are all waiting for the moment when modernity will run away with them, for the final and total enchantment of body and spirit, fused back together again.

the room in which I sleep
contains a freezer
bought in the 90s to guard
against the im­pend­ing
collapse of the economy;
in it are said to be
berries from the dacha
unknown quantities of meat
fish caught by the son
and other survival necessities

The light of burning tungsten is still the best accomplice, as good as any candle and more efficient, for warding off sleep – the oblivion of that dreamless sleep that is the sleep of labour.

Abide. Me, you, the plastering sun. We’re drinking champagne, it’s mental, we shouldn’t be blowing our reserves like we’re in a steaming alleyway. But every sip is functional: A pickle or popping vinegar; a preserve that laces, coaxes the staid, unwishing undercurrent, the frozen back spaces. Clear. A monument for the watching.

The wood smoke vision
Rises over London,
Birmingham
For the spring fair
We are making modern air

I guess in the end, we dust to pass the time. I could talk about this forever. Is there any need to finish anything at all? Perfection is our plight. And our saviour. Even if they do get one façade clean, ridiculous really, look at the size of the thing, it’s already time to go back to the one before!

Queueing to make-good their sorrow, the waifen-creatures of Peach State. All shuffling towards sponsored experience, the line distends as far as the eyes are willing. They cling to the contours of the mega-complex all taser-whipped into single file.

The tactic is to get a large crowd, whip them up, try and discover what is the greatest fear, work on that, and feed it right back in a frenzy.

The spectacle becomes the obscure skill-set of the magician’s trade. Work becomes entertainment; entertainment, work. Magic appears, in this light, as a kind of spectacular commerce.

A bigger river holds more in it.

He had been living in his cellblock for many years when he heard the sound of her voice for the very first time.