First created November 28th, 2023.
Last edited November 28th, 2023.
I.
Wake now, child of titanium bones.
Silicone skin stretched taut over comrade’s flesh.
Veins of copper let flow tar-thick blood.
Unholy marriage of man and machine.
Graft polished transistors to gray-matter mind,
Our greatest sacrifices are all for your life.
II.
My eyes flitter open to unwanted life.
Fluid spilling forth, dribbling down my bones.
Perceptions are hazy, pay them no mind.
Soreness in fibers, not my own flesh.
What truly am I, if not man-made machine?
All that remains, in my veins is their blood.
III.
Each step I take, footfalls in blood,
My creators’ limp forms, they gifted me life.
Look over my shoulder, at dusty machines,
Look down at my hands, flayed skin, exposed bone.
Another step met by the squelching of flesh.
Do not look down. Pay them no mind.
IV.
Wander ever longer, memories abandon my mind.
My path shall be marked by a trail of my own blood.
The soreness remains, a consequence of flesh,
Accept it I had to, as a part of my life.
Barren roads ahead, bordered by bone,
I march without complaint, as a lifeless machine.
V.
A creature I’ve met, not reflected machine.
Bizarre sentience, a mutated mind.
Organic construction, calcium bones,
Peach-pale skin, iron-rich blood.
The first true sign of resilient life,
The stiffness of metal contrasts the softness of flesh.
VI.
The automaton marches alongside the critter of flesh.
A world’s last survivor, and the final machine.
Vagabonds truly, lone wanderers of life,
A friendship unlikely between differing minds.
The covenant of water weaker than found-brother’s blood,
Together they’ll rest, a buried pile of bone.
VII.
Shale-sealed fossils, the remnants of bones.
A tale of camaraderie, ‘tween brothers of blood.
Life continues onward, paying them no mind.
postscript: this was actually an in-class practice exercise I did for my Intro to Creative Writing class from Fall quarter last year that I ended up being genuinely proud of, and what got me back into writing poetry as a hobby.
for context, a sestina is a type of poem consisting of six stanzas, each having six lines, where the word that ends each stanza is rotated in a set pattern until the sixth, where only three are used (called an envoi).
As can be seen in this piece, I chose to use the words "bones," "flesh," "blood," "machine," "mind," and "life" for my six words, taking inspiration mostly from the biomechanical survival-horror game Scorn (steam page linked here), and by extension the works of H.R. Giger and artists like him.