Science Fiction Bitter Suite–Judy Klass
FERVENT AGNOSTIC
When I want to believe there is a God,
I think of (bad/good) karma I possess
and incidents both resonant and odd
that felt like He was out to curse, or bless
me personally. Sure, they could be random,
but musically, they reverberate.
I see Him as benign and cruel, in tandem:
a joker/teacher we all love to hate.
I think of Turing, and Ike Asimov,
and how they dreamed machines could be like us!
I don’t think you can code in how to love;
that robots can be shy; or chivalrous…
which makes me think I think I have a soul,
and Someone keeps the stars under control.
HOW THE MECHANISM WORKS
Philip K. Dick in his Do Androids Dream…
has androids pass as humans, fueled by math.
The Voight-Kampf Test may complicate their scheme
but can’t tell clever ‘droid from sociopath.
In Scott’s Blade Runner film, things are reversed;
Dick’s distaste for faked feelings can’t come through.
The Replicants are noble. Unrehearsed.
Rick Deckard learns: Machines are people too!
Ike Asimov’s books sought to prove their worth;
I, Robot shows them kind, wise, true–although
the film has evil robots menace Earth
and Will Smith gets to snort: “I told you so!”
Moral: that thing a writer wants to say
is what Hollywood feels it must betray.
THE SECRET OF SOYLENT GREEN
When Harrison gave us Make Room! Make Room!
it was his version of “If This Goes On…”
He hoped we’d end the Population Boom
that might doom us–before the chance was gone.
Half-Catholic, half-Jew, he did research
and gave old Sol a wise, prophetic role:
raging for pages, railing at the Church
which threatened life by banning birth control!
The movie Soylent Green does a 180;
its kindly priests shelter humanity.
No one stands up for science, or talks of weighty
ideas to end the mass insanity.
Bleak fatalism, and a final twist…
What made the author write the book is missed.
PSYCHOACTIVE
Philip K. Dick was born with a twin sister
but she soon died from parental neglect.
All through his life he thought of her, and missed her.
Perhaps that’s part of why he could detect
a lack of something in the everyday,
a sense of “dreams fulfilled” as empty, fake;
joy, certainty and love crumble, give way
to feeling tricked–sick–caught in a mistake.
That owl’s mechanical. Pre-crime’s a lie.
The Man in the High Castle sits and writes.
My memories are planted–who am I?
Typewriter taps help days bleed into nights…
While fragments of his mind drifted apart,
his VALIS turned the madness into art.
***
Judy Klass‘s poems have appeared in the Brooklyn Review, Brownstone Review, Ship of Fools, Piedmont Literary Review, iota, Möbius, Into the Teeth of the Wind, the Long Island Quarterly, Slant, Pivot, Shenandoah and other publications. She is the author of three poetry books from small presses. http://www.judyklass.com