The video image jerks, all start and stop;
It's monochrome, low quality and blurred
Surveillance footage taken in some shop.
But now you notice what is quite absurd -
That figure standing talking near the top
Of the pale screen is yourself, your words unheard
But your gesticulating hands in action
As you negotiate some banal transaction.

That sequence finishes. Another starts.
More figures jerk around a different store,
Like lousy actors blocking in their parts
Without a thought of what they're moving for.
And now your figure comes, and now departs,
On screen for twenty seconds and no more.
An ugly splice - then there's still more to see.
Press the fast-forward? Or sit patiently?

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