Published today on The Science Creative Quarterly.
Oils on 80 x 100 cm stretched canvas.
“Surveillance Sonnet #73”
Light comes in many colors: ROYGBIV, above, below, between.
Cables bring light across borders, so we’re closer than we’ve ever been.
Optical fiber cables carry light with digital information.
That info contains the phone, Net, and TV of a nation.
That time of history thou mayst indeed behold
In which kings and soldiers take back their hold
On riches such as bouncing light
Carrying the world’s internal might.
In the USA NSA’s XKEYSCORE and PRISM,
And other countries’ security services too—
They break the telecoms light up with a prism
To spy on me and you.
Sometimes they bend the wire instead.
Light escapes either way. Due process is dead.
