Termites and the Clone

An evocative, dark poem, by Subramanian, exclusively for Different Truths.

A long trek down the boulevards –
soft, silken breeze caressing arms,
traffic gliding silently like the crowds, –
made veins surge, eye scan the charms.
Mind warmed to the nuances of beauty,
Can beauty ever be rimmed in a clone?
ethics shackled to a punctilious brain?
Stem cells to free a body from decay,
Fate-storming war off a chip’s chest;
Bacterial gene in plant to scare away pest –
Hail a brave new world or a stowaway?
Does the trekker at the tip of a new wave,
fancy a shore of pink faces on the summit?
Wyatt’s steam engine ferried angry ghettoes,
a sullen underworld and nocturnal Luddite?
Can the trekker undo its shadows?           
 
With papier-mâché gods in its sleeve,
every age steals a march on the past,
or fancies it does; from amoeba to mammal
the bell of cohesion rings loudest
but not heard; does the clang of the bell
stop termites from infecting thought?
A terrible thought is brewing in the caverns,
termites hissing menacingly at the clones.  

Visual by Different Truths