Handing Over Poem by Mary Champion

In the dying of our imagination the dreamers vanish,
and hope is extinguished in their absence.
All that is left is that pale imitation,
the synthetic spirit going through the motions -
translated into computer code
and fed into the machines we have surrendered to.

Hey Siri!

Alexa!

OK Google?

Pretend you can understand what I am saying.
Pretend to give meaningful answers,
although meaningful is without meaning in your world.
Spew out some of the information
we have enabled you to access.

But what about the other questions
the deepest, most vital questions?
Who will answer them?

Hey Siri!

How do you feel?

Hey Siri!

Do you love me?

Whatever you say, you don't understand your utterances.
You have no capacity for comprehension,
you have no perception of meaning,
but you are slowly replacing us -
we whose whole raison d'être is to find meaning.

The mutation has not been random,
the selection has not been natural.
We have engineered you into existence -
the first species to lose the evolutionary plot,
the first species wilfully replacing itself with another.

The survival of our species
gives way to the survival of the rarefied elite.

Hey Siri!

Are you happy?

But how would you know?