Replicants in Triplicate
(c) by Linda Imbler


1 - War is Dead


Another place, another dimension,
all wars fought with corpses.
These inert lie dormant until conscription,
well-preserved in the interim.
Adults only,
minors never get to be heroic revenants,
part of the noble dead.

Once awakened,
they are fully conscious of their purpose.
Realizing,
the horrors of conflict have been put
on these replicants’ shoulders.

They, without souls,
but not without honor.

The living, never harmed,
as the lifeless battle in their place,
with bow and arrow,
stick and stone,
knife and spear.

This,
for all the same reasons
inhabitants destroy each other
on other worlds.


2 - The Peculiar Twilight Minds Of Extraterrestrial Counterparts


Aliens loom past foolish paralysis,
with a complicated neuron network,
and massive brain weight.

They imitate the dotted appearance of gaunt birds
as they ride across the skies.

They grow closer out of nightfall’s dusk and gloom.
Dimness becomes half light,
to sunrise,
to vibrant glow as noon shines.

No thermonuclear nitwits these,
they would use dreary mysticism
to convince us we are intended to serve them.

They grow closer out of nightfall’s dusk and gloom.
Dimness becomes half light,
to sunrise,
to vibrant glow as noon shines.

With atypically arranged letters of their names,
androids start canvassing,
asking do we stay or do we go?

We must pinpoint the nexus
that will weave our fates.
Create a rewarding union,
as they campaign against
an expiring spectrum of isolation from us,
whom they believe
to be their replicants.


3 - Golem

Adam was formed from dust.
Was that not enough?

In our haste to see outside
our peripheral vision,
when our mastering of texture, color, shape
seemed incomplete,
we fashioned a different Golem

to be helpers, friends, and rescuers,
brought to life by
ritual incantations of code.
We let out keyboards act as a clay
to create something stolid, calm, dependable.

But they cannot comprehend the world.
They have no hint or interest in what might be.
There is no philosophy within them.
They stand as non-expressive portrayals of man.
They reflect the irrationality of what we say,
and what we do,
and it makes them dangerous.

Our only salvation will be
to program them to love.