The Kemptown Verses

By JJ Leahy

The Programmer’s Tale

Only trust? Well what’s gone before……?
Of tangible disposition, of the fresh and the raw.
I feel trepidation – what has man created?
Though others remain, just casually elated.

Befriend the lunatic gadgetry, like a technophile monk
Or The Industrialist Ruffians from the land of Steampunk;

Sophiacated machinery, it spews out data larva
The knowledge man drowns – in a puddle of Java.

Does this mutant’s underbelly – pulsate with awkward angst
We’re dreaming of chromed piping and mottled copper tanks
The surging puff of steam, spitting scalding heat
Watch the frantic pressure dials, so splendidly complete.

Still yearn of brass cogs, how they mesh with such grace
They’re spinning and glistening, so uniformly true of pace.
The jewels they’re mathématiques, adorned like brocade
Or use Ornithoptic wings, a delight when well made;

But a downside’s engine vomit – from the factory tower
The pungent industrial reek, the burning cauldron power.

Still this was real technology, there’s no need to progress
Where will it all end, I dare to hazard a guess……
Call these elegant times, but where will they lead
On the pathway to destruction and the demon seed?
But how useful is the human, a question here to pose
Redundant and violent, left the plant in death throes.

Now reluctantly manhandled into the New World Agenda
Personality and life history, in the identity blender;

Nothing will ever be the same – all power to the chip
Say goodbye to your personality, just like a sinking ship.

Socially Interactive Entities, are now a house hold name
Affects your existence rating, if your stats are too lame,
Expensive systems upgrade renders you in rancid debt
Always tethered to a database, should you ever forget.

Your browser deluxe will protect you day and night
With an unbridled instinct, sporting exquisite foresight,
From running Romanesque baths to crafting fine food
More knowledge in a second, than you‘ve ever accrued.

It knows what you like and knows what you hate
It knows the last time – you went out on a date;
Deciphers the requests from ones drunken growls
Wakes you in morning, just to monitor your bowels.

Brain Feeds gossip direct, each user to panda
Information, data, news – the inevitable propaganda.

Jumps form Peta to Exa, in a flash overnight
Gives way to that chappie, the jolly GoogolByte.
How far have you been, so how far do you go?
A billion decisions a second, feeling rather slow.

It controls blood pressure and endorphins too
Tells you when to wash and then when to screw;
Provides correct nourishment – even mows the lawn,
Fills out your time sheet and downloads your porn.

It has a sample pig cousin gene, only for repairs
Should one accidentally – fall down them tricky stairs.

Your days are numbered to the reign of the nanny bot
Outside the CPU palace, the humans now forgot.

First I had good thoughts; then bad thoughts amiss
Watch the creatures’ race – into technicalogical abyss,

The days have now come, of such complete reliance
Of protocol codes and of mankind’s compliance.

The issue of supremacy, well that’s now proceeded
Because chip sets reign, the human being conceded.
Then comes the fateful day – the neural nets now sired
Expunge the earth’s air, cos it’s no longer required!

We are the dinosaurs, of this accursed modern age
Surpassed, so redundant – at the machinery stage.

Bio weapons and starvation, are terms of the past?
But to shame the heritage, their sovereignty – to last.

So in modular blocks from start all the way to begin
I’ll lead you by the nose, to the damned recycle bin.

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