Published May 1st, 2023
by Linda Imbler
(Wichita, Kansas, United States)
Will future robots carry the genes of past robot circuits within themselves?
All their actions,
governed by sensations and emotions they lack.
Automatons,
too circuitously egocentric to feel any empathy.
They are meddlesome robots,
with no parts adaptable.
They sit upon their honored throne of repetitive ideas,
continually harping on the same subjects.
There's familiarity among themselves for their group think,
a united array of platitudes,
intellectual relics carried forward
as routine inner analytical process,
mere mechanical memory.
Their unconscious rituals performed
as behavior determined by bits and bytes,
transmitting their balanced equations down to the smallest detail.
Let's not write odes to their clattering certainty,
their saucy pretentiousness,
only thought, but never felt.
Let's not offer idolatry to these lifeless gods.
We must avoid shirking the pulsation of our hearts.
We must believe in the idea of humanity's greatness,
and our own heritage,
even in the rapt joy of our slumbers,
we should feel the cadence of words spoken
between all living things.
Biography
Linda Imbler is the author of five paperback poetry collections and four e-book collections from Soma Publishing.
This writer lives in Wichita, Kansas, with her husband, Mike the Luthier, several quite intelligent saltwater fish, and an ever-growing family of gorgeous guitars.
Learn more at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.
This poem is included in Poetry World #6, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Chicago Poetry Magazine:
Marengo, Illinois
by James Madigan
Chicago Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
- Visit the main Wax Poetry and Art Submissions Page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
- This website and all contents ©Kirk Ramdath and specified artists.
(Advertisements)