UNITED STATES OF THE ANDROID

 

Through covetous America

Mechanically I wander,

Encoffined in a Dream of glass

And metal, rolling endlessly

Upon the asphalt-clotted stream

That covers up the ruined past.

 

The programs on my windshield bait 

My cravings to accelerate:

I yield unto the showman’s craft

That entertains percentages

And gluts my soul with images

That advertise the Golden Calf.

 

Whatever can be sold and bought

Is packaged to seduce my thoughts:

Arrested in the passing blur

Of pageantry that is sustained

Relentlessly, to numb life’s pain

By means of sweet commercial lure.

 

The captain of this craft am I,

And Freedom is my destiny.

Along these roads I sport and sing,

A representative of all

Who have exchanged their human flaws

For sinless cogs and wires and springs.

 

No need to mourn when I am dead:

The radio inside my head

Will guide me through that valley’s shade.

The wheels of Fate roll ever on;

As for this body, Science strong

Each dying organ shall replace

 

Until I have the jewel won,

And Nature I have overcome,

And artifice controls the void—

A brain of cybernetic lies,

Synapses all computerized:

United States of the Android.