Society's Arrest

Pushed into the freezer
By our own imaginations, we slowly
Slow down, halting.
Literature's coolness demands it so,
Like a traffic light dictating red.

Our little micro-lives are stopped,
Not like ageing clocks
Or idle drivers stuck in sticky traffic,
But like colonies of mould, once hotly sprawling over bread
Now kidnapped, their progress stolen.
Their fleshy, stony vaults ripped
Wide open.

In our no-time we squat
Like crocodiles in the sun.
Open-mouthed, stock-still,
The threat of motion gone.

We breathe no more, only live;
We think no more, only read.