More and faster computer chips, more and faster . . . and faster. |
|
ChipsThere in my paper, lost among the newsof stuff readers actually value, attracted to a heightened surge of blood, there’s an item announcing yet another chip, newly minted and its internal capacity dates this poem as surely as a time-capsule One point six billion calculations in a second, as if we could conceive of that Architects speak of less as more and are proven right by the structure of computer-chips and it’s a legacy of the mind in either case But the mind is a different thing than calculation and we’re still Model T-ing with calculation I’m not the first to wonder if we may outrun thought, bound into a dictatorship of zeros and ones, as if we could conceive of that So there it is, tucked away in my paper, among the more popular wars and scandals Still, man’s an old hand at making war, well taught in the art of scandal and such an untested and naive calculator Zeros and ones may answer before they’re asked, these questions belonging to thoughtfulness, as if we could conceive of that |
This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection THE SMELL OF TWEED AND TOBACCO available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats. |