Member Poem

Golem

Prelude

To create a life

is no longer difficult.

To create a person, a human,

Out of the tabula rasa

that grows from our vats

is much more difficult.

Once one arrives at this point,

There is still the thorny question of control.

Corpus

Gliding up the stairs,

rail-guided by fingertips,

I head for honest Abe's office cum laboratory.

The portal is locked, but I have built up quite a charge.

I enter that place, and remain for some time.

Outside: nothing I can reach,

stars, nebulae, dark planets and

the corpses of space travelers.

Inside: everything just as I left it:

equipment shattered, drawers on the floor,

the incessant squealing of the rudder bird

like a particularly strident gong.

I am reminded of that antique video:

Frankenstein.

I have broken everything but the bird.

I open the cage; wring its neck.

Still, I have not found what I sought.

The blow comes without warning.

Postlude

I wake up slowly.

I am bound, upright, wreathed in metal chains.

I am still in the lab,

Which bears some evidence of cleaning.

Montini is moving about in the other room;

I recognize his asymmetrical tread.

Montini injects something into my neck.

"What have you done?" I ask,

but he does not at first reply.

"Evidently you are defective,

I must try again."

"But the Good Dr. is dead," I protest,

vision blurring.

"No matter," he says, "the laboratory is mine now."

He starts to shuffle away.

"How many?" I call after him.

"You are the seventh."

Soon, I can neither see, nor hear, nor feel, nor speak.

My thoughts are flying up into an artificial sky

The painted stars are no less real than I.

The End