Beware Horseless Carriages

There may come an era
Low on words. Already,
Languages are dying

Right and left, for the lack
Of host populations.
The dataome depends

Less and less on spoken
Conversations, even
Natural languages

Tout court. Humans could do
With fewer words. Robots
Could use fewer humans.

One can imagine these
Phrases imagining
Themselves obsolescent.

The problem symbolic
Language solved, after all,
Lay in the low throughput

Possible for gestures
And vocalizations.
Bodies were the choke-point

For culture as much as
One-celled anaerobic
Metabolism was

For life’s evolution.
Now that information
Has other stratagems,

Does it really need words
And syntax—or stories—
To get the hard jobs done?

Along with poems, the whole
Talking world will become
As horses have become,

Idle accoutrements
In paddocks that once were
Barbarian engines

Of conquest, gold for kings,
The thunder once harnessed
To civilization.