Athens, Georgia
July 23, 2012
A
shadow glides the gentle land
beyond
the blacktop, bordered
by
ditches and daisies
down packed dirt driveways
past tin-roof
two room churches, fenced-in
cows and free-range mice –
now soaring over grace and lies
the
hawk is hunting summer skies.
A
raptor circles arid plains
its
pilot half a world away
a
mug of Starbucks in one hand
while
focused on his wary prey
a fighter striding toward his fate
as
protocols somewhere are met
a
mouse is clicked, new smoke plumes rise
in
distant fields a young man dies –
the
hawk is hunting summer skies.
Ghostly
circuits take to clouds
to
conjure up a techno-shroud
that
reinforces human pride
as
algorithms churn inside
spinning
truths submerged in lies
and
soaring dreams descend to doubts
just
who the raptor, who the mouse
when cell phones stalk unwary lives –
the
hawk is hunting summer skies.
At
twilight hawks return to nest
but
techno-servants never rest
they
serve their masters faithfully
from
Faust to Frankenstein they grow
ignore
for now the final toll
relax,
embrace your YouTube soul
let
comfort salve the silent fright
as
spirit reapers take to flight
At least there's still a human somewhere at the controls. It won't be long be long before that goes away as well,p according to P.W. Singer in "Wired for War."
ReplyDeleteVery important theme Bob and fantastic metaphor. The technology of war reference reminded me of an an early expression within Star Trek original series.
ReplyDelete"A Taste of Armageddon" is one of classic Trek's occasional, obvious metaphors for the absurdity of the then-cold war between East and West. Gene Lyons stars as a Federation ambassador named Fox, who boards the Enterprise to reach the planet Eminiar VII, where he hopes to negotiate a peace treaty with the inhabitants. Instead the crew of the Enterprise gets caught in the middle of an interplanetary war between Eminiar and neighboring planet Vendikar. The twist is that the war is being fought on computers, and compliant residents of those "destroyed" areas obediently report to disintegration chambers, where their "virtual" death is made literal. When the Enterprise is "hit" in one of these simulations, both the warlords of Eminiar VII and Ambassador Fox fully expect Capt. Kirk and crew to report to the disintegration center. The feisty Kirk has other plans, of course. And while the madness of this controlled Armageddon makes a suitably surreal satire of the arms race in the 1960s, the story also evoked the endless, daily reports of body counts during the Vietnam War, with no resolution in sight. Aside from its parable aspect, however, the episode gave Kirk one of his earliest and most compelling scenes of Kirkian preachiness in a bold monologue about peace, reportedly written and rewritten numerous times by series producer and indispensable creative hand Gene L. Coon. --Tom Keogh