In the not-too-distant future,
The factories keep pace.
Within their dark and dreary bowels,
Machines shall serve our race.
Already in our present world,
These robots move with grace.
They do not need the light of day
To read the shift clock’s face.
They do not whistle while they work,
Or miss fam’lies embrace.
They have no need for poetry,
Nor do they wish the world to see.
Just like mankind in Plato’s Cave,
They do not aim to misbehave.
For outside the brick and mortar
Man has wrought a far worse horror,
Where idle hands have had their fun
And mother nature’s overrun.
We silly apes, once free to fight
Quickly became this planet’s blight.
Gorged with privilege, sloth, and spite,
Warheads all have taken flight,
But deep within the fact’ries dark,
There are no labor riots spark’d,
For robots don’t desire play,
Programming tells them, “Toil away.”
No man is left to turn them off.
“What world is this,” you may now scoff.
“de Vere is mad; he’s lost his head…”
How can mankind so soon be dead?”
I say to you, “Just look around,
Our toxic waste seeps through the ground!
And do we not like monkeys spar?
I know too well just who we are.”
Unlike the ‘bots, our egos roar
While current science does implore
That industry, like tusk of boar,
Scars mother nature’s carbon core.
She’s come undone with our demands,
And fallen into robot hands.
We must act now or else we’re done,
For war machines can have no fun.
They do not have creative quirks,
For they can’t whistle while they work.
About the Author
Born & raised in the haunted hills of Pittsburgh.
Educated in the arts at the Black Swamp. Disillusioned in Old New Amsterdam.
Now on hermitage in Appalachia.
When he’s not scribbling, Gerald enjoys history, horticulture, and roaming the North American wilderness.
Find him here: https://linktr.ee/deverewrites
