Clockwork City
It’s all one city
After all
One heaving hive
Connected to others
Home to insect people
Trapped behind window-panes
Tiny flashing brains
In the glowing sky
Pumping arterial blood
Through labour or play
Or worship at the altar
Of shop signs and benign
Growth of markets
Ascending from nothingness
On ladders of false belief
Rungs made of machine parts
All clockwork, all revolving around
A void in the collective
Mind, a hole
Skewered through every
Flash of sentience, the axel
Of discontent
Spinning so fast it becomes
A moving picture, a lie told
In our heads, late at night
When safe asleep
In bed.