OK, so I made some advances.
I've compiled a kernel for poodle, using the patches at AndroidZaurus. Need to test autobuild kernel to see if that matters or not.
I get the Cylon, but it either: continues for ever, or stops after about 5 min. I need to restart the host.
To get the Cylon I had to take the android-root image from OmegaMoon and use my kernel, with hints from AndroidZaurus. His root image will not do anything but give me the blank screen.
I'm playing with perms and options to get past this, if anyone has done this please let me know.