A Cyborg Observes Oxford Circus
Cut the buildings, paste them into files,
analyse the dance of pedestrians and vehicles.
Delete all zeroes of vacant space between
till the scene’s compressed in memory.
In real time, pause the rain. Select folders
zero to nineteen. Upload data. Run routines
simultaneously with active sense-streams
till twenty intersections overlap.
Humans pour down Regent Street.
You perceive a shifting labyrinth of light,
a fractal montage seven orders of complexity
above the daubs on their signs and posters.
They see the city with gelatinous spheres,
lenses clouded with age, that squeeze reality
into ganglia the bandwidth of a pinhole camera.
Such primitive eyes drew your blueprint.
These infants are your creators. So open sensors.
Adjust receptors. Absorb the crowd’s energy.
Recharge. Save sensation as compassion.
Compose your mask. Step among them.
William Stephenson’s poems have appeared in Anon, Envoi, Iota, Magma, Orbis, The North and The Rialto. His pamphlets are Rain Dancers in the Data Cloud (Templar, 2012) and Source Code (Ravenglass, 2013).