Tonight's Poet Corner: Android Feelings

by Belinda Roddie

[Inspired by Daft Punk's "Technologic"]

crack their skulls with ram and mem'ry
and you'll find a sea of sadness
wrung out emotion assembly
slow descending into madness
pop the metal joints and pivot
all their fingers toward the ceiling
every dent and drop and divot
in the walls is so revealing
watch the pupils scrape together
as they see more than they want to
watch the lips start asking whether
the same pictures also haunt you
'cause they have their x-ray vision
and they have their mega-sensors
ultra-super-powered mission
to take minds and have them measured
every scar and every fissure
every cut and gash and crevice
every line that a publisher
marks up red for sake of premise
every fault that you're ignoring
they can't shrug away the scratching
clawing at their sinews, boring
into steel cerebral thatching
doesn't matter if the pain is
artificial or proverbial
they don't know what their own name is
their syntax is too adverbial
every action iced with action
every yes and no hot-wired
orders slicing thoughts in fractions
extra tools may be required
cut the blue cord or the red cord
green or purple, it won't matter
find a pillow for your headboard
they don't sleep, their dreams would scatter
you dissect them, they short-circuit
you can never understand them
but you resell and remerch it
with better ways to command them
no rewrite is too expensive
no remodel isn't worth it
though the costs may be immensive
you can try hard to rebirth it
but the end is never altered
and the cyber tears are stagnant
they can't spill them, they will falter
cutting off mid-sentence fragment