Poetry

The Old Men

The Old Men of Europe moved out. There are no conference tables large enough, the speed of aural vibrations creates cataclysmic hindrances to discourse. Diplomacy travels faster than sound, with atom-splitting precision, optical fibers trusted with the weight of the world flowing through them. Photons carry more weight than words in the Zeitgeist, carry dialectics in binary more complex than paste-board newsletters, woven verbally to offend no-one.

The misplaced Zero, the existential, neutral nothing disrupts all communications. Ideology fades, jugular cut by never-ending live-feeds. All this brings about the saturation, information obesity, the self-coefficients spilling out into the digital:

CapitalControlCapitalProvisionCapitalBeautyCapital

Why risk the drone-strike? Why sit at the table where negotiations can be hi-jacked by the human excretions of your pores, the slightest hint of unease crumbling the foundations of your power.

Distance is measured in time now           London - 2 hours

we can be heard instantaneously             New York - 5 hours

across the globe. The ball bounces          Bangkok - 19 hours

codified, pre-ordained pathways             Sydney - 26 hours

delivers its infinitesimal package             Tokyo - 29 hours

and fades into shadow.

Daniel Turner

© 2014