Privacy

I noticed something yesterday,
A bruise just below your brow.
As I looked you turned away,
Before I questioned how.

It was only two weeks before
I’d seen your swollen lip
You talked about a cold sore
Then dismissed it with a quip.

At work decorum promotes a distance
Allowing space for our privacy.
We hide bits of our existence
Behind walls of secrecy.

Should I have been more probing?
Should I have questioned more?
Maybe it was part of me hoping
You had nothing to cover for.

Tomorrow when our workday starts
Will I notice an empty space?
In a world filled with graphs and charts
What’s missing is a human face.

Government Surveillance

Its life composes of captured frames
Gleaned from public video sources
Sequences caught on city streets,
Recorded for no one’s pleasure.

Captured image as daylight creeps
And shadows grow ever larger.
It’s just a glimpse from a camera eye
Constantly watching and recording.

Unseeing lense, watching all
Invading moments left to choice
Random actions stored to tape
Indexed with a time and date.

Bytes of data stored away
Painting a big picture.
Digital moments of that time
All stolen from my life.

-Clarence Holm

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