Mutant Horrors

a poem dedicated to Bruce Boston

Will our future heirs
be macho mutants
perpetrating post-atomic horrors
which make Hiroshima look quaint?
Or will they be usurious techno-rodents
scampering through information grids
all hours of night and day?

What kind of hells are we creating
through our illicit love of machines?

Will we transform our hearts
into syncopations of
micro-managed macro-market
projection sheets?

How many no longer hear
their own souls –
just the mind-numbing noise
of techno-beasts?

How many no longer see nature –
just computerized forms of horror
and countless boolean strings?

Can our original programming
ever be retrieved?

Bill:	Our original programming? What the heck is the author talking about?
Nadya:	Yes. Our "original programming" was probably a microbe in some primordial sea. I think the author is romanticizing about lost innocence and imagining some fictitious utopia that never existed.
Liao:	(nodding his head) That's a common literary device.
Gus:	Yes, and even some computer programmers dream of a 'Holy Grail' in which code coherence is perfect. They long for an optimal state where art and science merge. At times I wonder whether such a state is possible.