Steel Mother

Grating metal teeth of cyclical type,
Gears and cogs that whir and wail
The screeching scratch, quivering quail
Efficient if noisy, guaranteed not to fail
A monster of a mechanical stripe.

The drones that hover about their queen
Leering yet proud of her industrial majesty,
The way of steel is the way to be,
Unyielding, unfeeling, unhurriedly
Working the system of the machine.

Dirty and grimy they hover around,
Levers and buttons, rapturous exclamation
That comes from the queen in exultation
Of the feeling she yields to, sensation
That shakes her frame, shuddering sound.

Something grows inside her, fast and built,
The stages pass quickly, nine months in a minute,
The sections seem complex, their mysteries infinite,
It continues at speed, a foetusbabychild - composite,
The product emerges, complete, no blood spilt.

But the infant is taken from the mothers care,
Pushed into cardboard, plastic, unloving surplus,
No bawling, no crying, neither makes any fuss,
The lack of emotion is efficient, not like us,
This human feeling, a hassle, success is rare.

So why not be robots, forget about flesh,
Don't have veins, have wire mesh,
Cables and pistons, not bones and muscle,
No brain to hinder, so forget the tussle
of wracking emotion, brittle pain
An automaton will always stay the same, sane,
A secure surrounding to grow and develop,
No need for love, sticky, sure to envelop
The young mind, better served by a machine,
Remove the deficiencies there've always been.