In a waking dream, a dreaming wakefulness,
ghost-like figures gather before silhouettes on stage
amid shadows of warehouses and pylons,
which eerily encroach on their moonlit clearing
Strobe lights flash down with a slippery evanescence
akin to the aurora borealis or Norway in winter

Dancers pulsate in a somatic trance,
together in their aloneness,
slung by syncopated break beats and auto-tune voices
into a zero-gravity space of electric synth sounds
and electric brain currents. There is no static present,
only future fading into past

Moments of dialogue with each other are diluted
in the deafening swirl of sound and space
Thoughts ripple through minds like water,
emerge as utterances, only to wane with breaths
Perceptions are lone stars in the night sky,
enveloped in a cloud of secrets

So we huddle more tightly around serotonin’s glow,
which spirals and rushes through bodies
as a house of collective feeling is built
A white plane opens up
in which figures are globules of light
– half being, half awareness –

simulating and constructing new worlds
from a bath of sensation
and a prism of possibility
Hearts are full but minds are hazed:
questioning is the anchor which can lower us
through the trapdoor of hallucination

The sky morphs to grey and then to pink
Through wisps of cloud, a red sun rises,
drenching pale faces in bloody rays
We look around at tired companions,
notice emergent frailty,
navigate a world of meaning

In the cold light of day, gusts of wind
cut between solid buildings
Like waifs, we file out into an urban zone
of straight lines and hard ground
News of war and rising seas is on the radio
We crystallize in a contracted world