dream laundry

fast cars smart cars
fast food slow food
fast luck long luck
you can buy anything

the smiling people
the gliding people
the glossy people
on the posters prove it

you can buy their sofa
you can buy their surfboard
you can buy their smartphone
and relax indefinitely

you can buy their dreams
you can buy their memories
and your own memories
like tinned meat

boots on the beach
music on the pillow
pills for your babies
subscribe to well-being

everything is for sale
everything is on sale
every offer must end
but there is no end of offers

look here click here
see more do more
book now pay later
life is a cake

grab a coffee
grab a seat
snatch a date
download a dream

Christina Egan ©2019

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This poem is also published in a local paper today, in print and online: Haringey Community Press, February 2024 (circulation 15,000).

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The title is taken from Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem Reklame (1956), where she coins the word “Traumwäscherei” (dream laundry, laundry of dreams or through dreams?). The omnipresent publicity and cheerful music soothe your worries and questions – until they stop and leave you in “Totenstille” (deadly silence, or silence of the dead?).

The idea of downloading memories and dreams comes from science-fiction such as Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner (1982), M. T. Anderson’s novel Feed (2002), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021). All three are superb and thoroughly disquieting.

The line “boots on the beach” comes from a particularly stupid – and sexist – video advertising hard drink by showing a young woman in a very scanty dress and very heavy boots. It played on a loop on several screens in a railway station so that there was no escape from it.

The line “music on the pillow” is inspired by Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), where he predicts ceaseless entertainment broadcast onto our walls, even inviting participation, and into our ears, continuing into our sleep. The result is isolation and despair.