The Tech-Child

The tech-child was born into
darkness and painted Spanish flowers.
The wind won’t rustle through the
leaves and grasses around his basinet.
The dark holds no secrets from the
blind, the robotic have no reason
to fear the human mind. The tech-child, circuit-boards
and artery maps - complexity in simplicity’s form –
the light display of cancer begins. And we
can hide from death in the shadows, and the
tech-child explains life and death and sunshine,
and we give away our control.

The tech-child is older now, but still a child – or
so the mechanics say. The information on bated
whiskey-breath cavorts the smoke-filled room. And
he told me I was living, and he told me when to die –
this magic child of life and death and hand-me-downs.
There were times I knew that I could love him; abreast
in the autumn sunshine on the lawn beside the house.
The summer flowers covered my chest-beats and
hid the telling scars. The tech-child, the overlord,
the mechanical sunrise and the maniacal
computer screen – he was watching from telegraph poles
a long way away.

The tech-child sits in the sunlight and rocks backwards
and forth. With wires rusty and a heart blackened by abuse,
he still controls the re-invented world. The king of Spanish
flowers – amongst which he used to lay – with a crown
of lovers and electricity. And we are left to fix our
names as our chosen titles fall into disuse. And un-re-inventing
ourselves from the tech-child, this virtual harness was
always designed to let us go. The fabled child, as
inventors often do, tastes the scent of regret. The amalgamation
was never intended, and maybe the blame is with human nature –
but the human clock will stop ticking as the tech-child dies.