I flew to Denmark in search of a soul

that, I fancied, lived in cyan,

bold on an unfamiliar stamp

that had invaded the bar on my login screen.

We arrayed in space under thin blue lights,

at tables cloned to the edge of time,

as commanders strode from centre to side

and charted our path across the sky.

But it was all too big, and I missed my fluent little

English tool box where I used to fumble,

that had been locked away and replaced by arrays

of sawn-off words, badly assembled.

A man came to talk about brand,

how it grows in a corner of borrowed minds.

But I worry for the sower and soil:

I reach for the fruit; it pulps in my hand.

So I didn’t find a corporate ghost,

a clean encounter of the executive type,

just us Brits and a man who I knew from Roskilde,

and a Finn, and a Swede I’d arranged to meet.

And now I don’t believe in a spirit that walks

over acetate covers, through seminars,

on homepages and in rising graphs,

I know a place with a thousand lives

who cling to dignify each hour,

painting dreams through keyboard talk with

coffee stains on spreadsheet days.