POEM FOR SNOWDEN #6: PHILLIPS

Collateral espionage

I was walking the dog

I was buying some milk

I was saying this

I was making a joke

I was thinking

I’ve been overheard before

Now it seems

I’ve been turned

into knowledge

We have all been turned

into knowledge

There’s someone somewhere

beyond that road junction

which cicatrices the boondocks

in a polished geodesic bubble

on a glacial estate

it’s their job

in a digital enterprise zone

At the sheer face of a terminal

they'll be shuffling codes and commentary

‘I bought some milk’

If only someone had told me

I’d have said some other stuff

“There is much that we want

and need from the West

but there is one thing which I do not want:

carelessness with people.”

‘A spectre is haunting Europe’

If only someone had told me

I might have cited examples

I might have named names

As it is, I think

that all they’ve got on me

is ‘I walked the dog’

Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips is a poet, playwright and journalist based in Bristol, UK. His first full-length poetry collection Recreation Ground was published by Two Rivers Press in 2012 and was described in London Magazine as ‘work of the highest order’. Tom’s poetry has appeared in anthologies such as 100 Poets Against The War and Short Fuse, as well as in various magazines and the pamphlets Reversing into the Cold War and Burning Omaha. His plays include Prella’s Gift, Man Diving and I Went To Albania.

Comments

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