Transparency: An Address by Iain Bamforth

Civil society, must we visit you the hard way?

Our diplomatic baggage gets lost in transit.
We don't read much now except on the qui vive.
Our expense account is blue and zinc
and pays for a room with a view
in the capital city no one has ever located –
a midnight afterthought between Paris and Ulm,
a building made of contempt and dismay,
a million unread copies of the DNA.
Here is the philosophy of glass we so admire…

But what will you do when we put down Hegel
and our suits stop thrashing on the rack outside
and the mirror looks blankly at the clouds
and we're not too sure what it means to say
between upset faces and empty places,
the private despair and the public indignation,
Willkommen in Europa, bienvenue à bord…

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