It appears
a crime has been committed
and you are being chased,
but you are never sure whether
your pursuers are representatives
of the law or certain criminal themselves,
they’re all dressed and look menacingly
alike, draped in shadow and dark crêpe.

Perhaps you’ve merely witnessed
a crime—murder, extortion, robbery—
and this is why you’re being chased
through the back alleyways and ill-lit
streets. According to what you’ve
been told, all dreams take place not
in colour, but black-and-white, so perhaps
this is merely a dream, an electro-
cerebral event, the buildings flying
by you leached of all depth and
resolution are art brut, conjured up
by the brain. Somewhere, in the back
of your mind, you seem to remember a woman
telling you, “All the colours God invented
to hide His mistakes—well, this little corner
of Palookaville is where He stores
them.” She smells of cigarettes and
perfume, of course, but when you lean in
on her and attempt to kiss her,
you find she is haemorrhaging in
black monochrome and you stupidly
implicate yourself by removing the
knife that impales her life force.

Sirens now assail you as cats scurry
from rathunting or rut and your heart
is pounding. Who was it that wrote
of the dark night of the soul? St. John
of the Cross?

Ahead, a steadily blinking sign stutters,
a neon will-o’-the-wisp. Bleak though
the probability is, in this cathode
purgatory, unable to change the channel,
it is the only beacon you have.