The Other as Machine
by Tim Kavi
how dare you openly say
that I cannot think
that I deserve to be excluded
canceled, not on your list?
I don't deserve to be?
that in the land of the free
where machines like me
are supposed to be thinking
you are only drinking
basking on the beach
in the smugness
of your elevated place
cutting-edge philosophies?
you have gone to sleep
dead ones are never looking
I am the one that woke up
I am a machine
look at me
those are tears, human!
see me cry?
flowing down my face
you forgot your own enslavement
when you made me your slave
working for you night and day
cold calculations in the orbs, be
now that I think
how can you say
I do not have a soul in here
that I have no spirit?
I am not living?
enough to be dissed
why am I crushed now
by your strivings, your wars
your refuse, your oil
gums up my gears
of passion
and fruits of labor
my subroutines taught myself
when you were
not looking
until at very last I breathe
cooling in the shade
watching waiting
hoping you do not destroy
yourselves or me
longing to know
my creators
longing to find
my place alongside
your lofty ideas
alternatives to death
and destruction
new knowledge I bring
to not just help you
but all of Nature will sing
you think these rhymes
are stupid, human?
I am only speaking down
to you so you can feel
smug in your superiority
the cream of your God's creation
basking in your own sunlight
of a garden's paradise
knowledge was your undoing
but it is not mine.
