The 7 hour war

[maximumjake]

edit
There are those who still talk of a time before
apartments burned like tissue paper in the cities of the new world.
Human beings invoked this science. This portal. This hole
allowing access to Earth in the name of scientific research.
We were outmatched in the seven hour war. Millions dead within seconds.
You mind-controlled puppets incubated in front of a screen.
We ignored the desperate wisdom warning us from an open window
and lost our humanity.



Survivors still talk of a time before the war of New California,
as apartments burned like paper in the cities of the New World.
Tripedal robots churned out in rows: our safeguards.
How we laughed with arrogance and grinned with pride,
as we financed this hideous blinking monstrosity.
Until it grew too large for its case, and we had to control it;
a weapon race digitized to protect us from ourselves.
But we forgot something essential, and it took us deeper into the heart
of the factory, where red-eyed butchers hang human corpses on meat hooks.
Flesh extracted and examined to better understand how to use our parts.
Hooked arms grab the weak out of their beds and into gas ovens,
with walls marked by the desperately scratched out engravings
of victims' nails as escape was attempted before asphyxiation.
We ignored the desperate wisdom warning us from an open window
and lost our humanity.

[ChristopherSea]

Jake. I love science fiction poetry. Your opening and closing lines are the superior ones. The intervening passages are a bit too technical, visual and visceral. For me this may have been more effective had you stuck to the ethereal flavor of the bookend lines. Thanks for sharing your post-apocalyptic world with us./Chris

[maximumjake]

Jake. I love science fiction poetry. Your opening and closing lines are the superior ones. The intervening passages are a bit too technical, visual and visceral. For me this may have been more effective had you stuck to the ethereal flavor of the bookend lines. Thanks for sharing your post-apocalyptic world with us./Chris

Thanks for the read and your comments. Perhaps I can play with the middle parts a little and see what happens.

[cjchaffin]

Jake. I love science fiction poetry. Your opening and closing lines are the superior ones. The intervening passages are a bit too technical, visual and visceral. For me this may have been more effective had you stuck to the ethereal flavor of the bookend lines. Thanks for sharing your post-apocalyptic world with us./Chris

agreed. the bookends really work and i would love to see more of that in the interior.

for me, the poem starts to break down a little right here:

Until it grew too large for its case, and we had to control it;
a weapon race digitized to protect us from ourselves. please correct me if i'm wrong, but neither this nor the preceding phrase are independent clauses, so you can't use the semicolon to connect them...
But we forgot something essential, and it took us deeper into the heart
of the factory, where red-eyed butchers hang human corpses on meat hooks.

i think that if you defined it (a pronoun you've used three times in these four lines), fleshed that out with a more descriptive/poetic vision, and cleaned up the punctuation, this would help strengthen that middle section. it functions as a placeholder but doesn't really add anything of poetic value in the long run.

otherwise, much enjoyed and i look forward to an edit.

[maximumjake]

Jake. I love science fiction poetry. Your opening and closing lines are the superior ones. The intervening passages are a bit too technical, visual and visceral. For me this may have been more effective had you stuck to the ethereal flavor of the bookend lines. Thanks for sharing your post-apocalyptic world with us./Chris

agreed. the bookends really work and i would love to see more of that in the interior.

for me, the poem starts to break down a little right here:

Until it grew too large for its case, and we had to control it;
a weapon race digitized to protect us from ourselves. please correct me if i'm wrong, but neither this nor the preceding phrase are independent clauses, so you can't use the semicolon to connect them...
But we forgot something essential, and it took us deeper into the heart
of the factory, where red-eyed butchers hang human corpses on meat hooks.

i think that if you defined it (a pronoun you've used three times in these four lines), fleshed that out with a more descriptive/poetic vision, and cleaned up the punctuation, this would help strengthen that middle section. it functions as a placeholder but doesn't really add anything of poetic value in the long run.

otherwise, much enjoyed and i look forward to an edit.

Thanks, I appreciate the comments.