Copy This Poem

Steal This Book*

July 21 2011

At the end of 7 years

every cell in my body

will have replaced itself.

So in a lifetime

I will die

10 times over,

and as many times

be reborn.

The simplest definition of life

is a germ of information,

able to protect itself

pass itself on.

All the complications of life

reduced

to reproduction

survival.

Like the common cold;

a strand of RNA, inviolable

in its simple protein coat.

So is a computer virus

alive?

And are we the monster

or Dr. Frankenstein?

And does consciousness arise

by accident

or is it inevitable,

given liquid water

a magnetic field

a reliable star?

As if sentient self-aware creatures

were pre-ordained

once life gets its start.

And are we privileged, more deserving

do we bask in the eye of God?

Or simply think

far too hard?

Errors accumulate

information degrades,

chemical bonds

eventually fray.

Either way, I will leave no children

behind.

The end of the line,

after millions of years

of survival.
So, have I betrayed my forbears?

Or saved myself

in words?

Information

in the form of a poem

some day overheard

recited

learned.

Because to be plagiarized

is a kind of immortality.

So let me be cribbed, infringed, pinched

lifted, pilfered, filched.

Or will I become unrecognizable,

garbled, hacked, disturbed?

Faithfully memorized,

or consigned to the trash

and burned?

*(My apologies to Abbie Hoffman for the title. Then again, I guess he could hardly complain when someone nicks a title like that!)

           

A rare philosophical poem – the sort of poem about which I’m not terribly enthusiastic. Because they can easily become pretentious, hard to read, no fun. So I’m pleased with this one. I touch briefly on a lot of very complicated and challenging ideas; but the poem moves along, it doesn’t become impersonal or academic, and there is some entertaining word play.

You can always tell at a glance it’s that sort of poem:  just by scanning it, and seeing all those question marks!

After all the metaphysics and big questions – the nature of life, and its likelihood; the singularity of consciousness; the conceit of human exceptionalism – the poem can be distilled down to an exploration of the artistic impulse:  are we fundamentally motivated by the desire to create something that will outlive us? Is art a hopeful – if delusional – means to immortality, to posterity? (Certainly not prosperity!) If all we are is information – an intact reproducible code – then perhaps this container of meat is superfluous, after all.

On the other hand, I am reminded of Woody Allen’s famous pronouncement:  “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it by not dying”!