In Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW

He assembled an apartment building 

Made out of television screens

Geometric equals partitioned across 

His make-believe city 

Now, I shiver amidst steamtower gray erections

Move movie screens 

More slip into the slump – of crystalline rows 

each with their tan chair, blue couch, dark wooden table.

The scene framed by the green leaves of a standing plant.

and again and again, on each screen the hues change as 

the lights flicker

I think the steam is affecting the remote. Its batteries are 

dying but I thought I just changed them at least I think that 

was recently just a few weeks ago I’m fairly sure

My neck aches – the tv-screen-glass is so clear and

the images are so detailed and 

the movies are so dull

I follow the chalky taste of cigarettes and dry hands and 

the street twists like a serpent in the forest that's grown 

overly accustomed to being used for a metaphor 

In Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA

The city is made of layers of matte paintings

The cityscape is made of rows of skyscrapers

like trains

Bustling past each other, shifted by unseen hands,

On their way to work 

and the movement of the other train

makes you a little sick and dizzy 

as your eyes insist that you’re in motion