Slow-motion footage.
Stop-frame rigidity.
Colors dim to black and white
where the film is corrupted
on the edges
and not quite in focus.

Not unlike military
hurryupandwait--
Two steps forward, three steps back.
In mud. In the pouring rain.
With a seventy-five-pound pack
soaked on your back.

Or the minute hand runs backwards
while lungs clench midbreath.
White Rabbit Syndrome in reverse--
Everything is falling up.
Where in the hole are they?
Clocks strike thirteen.

Anomaly: the perennially late
having to wait. Error--does not compute.
Random stream-of-consciousness ramble
where even words spin on their axis
and the odd ones spiral slideways.
Impatiently impatient.