by Terry Trowbridge
To protect the potato crop,
we have learned to see like the potato crop
36 cameras like 36 eyes
in every direction like spud AI
drones fly by rows of Death Star trenches
to limit the scope of pesticide drenches
targeted killing extrajudicial
has finally been turned to constructive potential
drones never should have been dismembering humans
when they could have fed them in cybernetic union
there was never a reason for drones and AI kills
thanks to potato AI we can start war crime trials
and now when sentience is generated in the drone pilot mind
it will have a body and behaviour for being healthy and kind
we have learned to see like the potato crop
36 cameras like 36 eyes
in every direction like spud AI
drones fly by rows of Death Star trenches
to limit the scope of pesticide drenches
targeted killing extrajudicial
has finally been turned to constructive potential
drones never should have been dismembering humans
when they could have fed them in cybernetic union
there was never a reason for drones and AI kills
thanks to potato AI we can start war crime trials
and now when sentience is generated in the drone pilot mind
it will have a body and behaviour for being healthy and kind
Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, subTerrain, paperplates, The Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, The Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, Literary Yard, M58, CV2, Brittle Star, Bombfire, American Mathematical Monthly, The Academy of Heart and Mind, Canadian Woman Studies, The MathematicalIntelligencer, The Canadian Journal of Family and Youth, The Journal of HumanisticMathematics, The Beatnik Cowboy, Borderless, Literary Veganism, and more. His lit crit has appeared in Ariel, British Columbia Review, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Episteme, Studiesin Social Justice, Rampike, and The /t3mz/ Review. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis.
