Autonomous Automaton

"Caliban is destined to remain a genetic automaton, a windup ghoul—vastly more pathetic than anything human. He experiences the world, but he has no capacity to be changed by it; he has a genome that lacks an epigenome." ~Siddhartha Mukherjee

 

Turning into an animal 

Can endanger the human soul.

Dark though it is outside flesh,

Only our bizarre gratitude

Keeps the candle from guttering

Inside that flesh. But I am proud

To pretend I'm automaton,

Grateful I am not I, although

I wish I could float here freely,

Aware as that liberated

Toady of vapor, Ariel.

I never served. I always lied.

And when I die, I'll gutter out

And go nowhere, which means, at least,

No longer here where the magus

Who winds up the ghouls is a ghost.