Termites and the clone

a poem by S

A long trek down the boulevards,
soft, silken breeze caressing arms,
traffic gliding silently like crowds,
made veins surge, eye drink the charms.

Mind warmed to the nuances of beauty;
Can beauty be rimmed in a clone?
Ethics shackled to a punctilious brain?

Stem cells to free a body from decay,
fate-storming war of 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-mache gods in its sleeve,
every age stealing a march on the past;
Or fancies it does; from amoeba to mammal
the bell of cohesion rings the loudest;
But not heard; does the clang of the bell
stop termites from infecting thoughts?

A terrible thought is in the caverns,
Termites hissing menacingly at the clones.