Admittedly, two poems on the same topic in the same day isn’t my usual style.  That being said, as I was looking at concept of what it means for the human race that money might well buy its way to an ‘a-mortal’ class of person, it seemed to have some implications worth exploring:

Human 2.0
by Michael Romani

It's something a little more cerebral than sublime
To believe science advances one funeral at a time
Still as technology replaces the knowns of nature
We might need some other sort of nomenclature

To describe what might be known as the new biology
And still yet another for the ethics of a new theology
No longer will both be quite as normal as commonplace
There will require new perceptions put into place

Human 2.0  will mostly likely still have a tarnished soul
And will still know sadness, pain and the need to console
But will have at least twice the lifetime's span
In which we'll need to rethink, redream and re-plan
The a-mortals walking tattoo down sunny Fifth Avenue
Just might hold themselves superior to me and to you
Believing themselves a near immortal sort of generation
Worthy of worship, lordship and faithless veneration

But they'll be trembling gods filled with anxiety
Fearful of all of life and its high loss complexity
Enslaving lessers to service rather than risking infinity
Knowing the slightest mistake might cost eternity

Like boys crying wolf, narcissists seek their immortality
And with each step closer, they work to live out their legacy
Becoming one with the tattered pages of living history
Turned one by one insistent on becoming their own legacy

But what if all they learn is what we readily turn to see
Already known is that extending life can be without dignity
And that there are natural limits to most of everything 
Even that of living as one that is fully a human being

(c)  March 18, 2019   Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved