Dreams - in Monochrome Night

I see a veil


Not over the eyes, but inside them


where the mind has a grain of its own

And dreams in monochrome night

​

Hazy thoughts graze

like electric sheep


on a field of grey matter, the brain

breezing just enough

to whir a memory

of a time from before,

when the screens were still RGB,

restless pixels hypnotizing

our young bloodshot eyes

​​

Coax yourself, plug in

You need a machine to sleep now

Your bed, a shroud stitched from white noise

each thread hanging between mind and matter,

between sleep paralysis and TV static

​

Each wrinkle, each dot,

a speck of time

already passed,

but remembered late enough


to be a haunt,

a poltergeist

​

This broken dome grits against

my black and white tongue, bleeding

for a time when antennas could be eaten

and streaming was just something rivers did

​

This fog, this static, God—

When will the white noise stop?