Friday Poetry Hour

The Lemon-Lime People

by Leonard Samuel Goldberg © 2008

The Lemon People just didn't like the Lime People.

They were a different color, green.

And they had a different taste.

So you see there was a problem.

And the Lime People jus didn't like the Lemon People.

They were a different color, yellow.

And they had a different taste.

So you see there was a problem.

So the Lemons and Limes met out in the town square.

And they all saw that the grass was green and the sun was yellow.

And they said together, if the the sun and the grass live peacefully together,

Then the Lemon Peple and the Lime People could also live peacefully together.

And the Lemon boys started dating the Lime girls,

And the Lime boys started dating the Lemon girls.

And before you knew it there were Lemon-Lime marriages and Lime-Lemon marriages,

And before you could turn around, there were Lemon-Lime boys and Lemon-Lime girls.

And that is the story of how the Lemon-Lime People began.

[used by permission]

Saturday Night Poetry Reading

Before and After Computers

 

Leonard Samuel Goldberg © 2008

 

Before our blood was sucked out of us,

Before our minds were put in a vise,

And our bodies stuck in front of the screen,

Before there were computers!

 

Men struck tall trees with broad axes,

The cool air sang with the crackling of the timber,

Loggers ran in all directions to avoid the falling trees,

Before there were computers!

 

Mailmen walked their routes to deliver letters,

Smiling attendants put gas in your car's tank,

Adding machines clacked as numbers were entered,

Real voices answered your telephone calls.

 

And then a strange thing happened:

The bank tellers disappeared,

Only automated voices were heard on the phone,

Movie theaters crumbled, entertainment became a lifeless screen.

Golfers no longer walked the hills and greens,

But played their golf on a computer, with no fresh air, no food,

     and no restaurant at the 19th hole.

 

And it hit me in the face:

What was becoming of us humans?

We no longer manned the lighthouses,

We no longer steered the trading ships on the oceans,

We no longer used our hands to make wooden cabinets,

The machines, all programmed and efficient,

Had taken over the world from us,

We sat, unblinking, unthinking,unfeeling.

 

As the computers ran the world,

And men and women became lonely for the old times,

So they created computer machines,

That looked human, that laughed, that cried, that sang, that danced.

 

And so it had happened,

Not suddenly, but so gradually that you didn't notice it happening.

Men and women of strength, of mind, of heart, of soul,

Whittling their time away in useless pursuits,

Becoming more like empty machines than humans,

And the great computers becoming more and more human,

These new rulers, these heartless machines in the vacuum of cyberspace,

These computers finally turning ever so slowly,

So slowly you could not see it.

 

But you did feel it in your heart and soul, you did feel the rage,

The rage to watch us humans being seen as antiquated,

Our hearts and souls losing value in a world of preciseness,

In a world where clearly we serve the computer,

We are the servants to its every quirk and command.

 

And the computer, now more human with clever software,

Now having feelings and moods, 

This computeroid, first under our command,

Is now virtually alive, thinking, feeling,

And us, becoming less and less human,

May be on the way to exinction.

Surviving, perhaps, but in a world run by computeroids.

 

[used by permission]