Brian Bilston, the "unofficial poet laureate of twitter" is writing a series of poems on the theme of The Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is the third poem.
A Life Sentience
They will be wondering - by now - where I am.
It’s not like me to be home so late
on a Wednesday,
particularly one in September.
This will not be forgotten in a hurry.
I can sense their censure, even from here;
hear the hiss of the vegetables
as they soften
under the refrigerator’s cool stare
and the dark scowl of the coffee machine.
I should have called, not just left them
to their own devices.
But perhaps they already know
that I am in crisis,
observed tiny shifts in my behavior
of which even I was unaware;
the depth of my tread
upon the carpet,
or the slouching in my chair
from which I shall not leap up
to rescue a forgotten cake
or slowly hoist myself
to trudge to the corner shop.
Its milk cartons must serve another.
And no more shall my day start
with a blast of cold
to snatch my breath
as the shower wakes for morning
or a desperate stretch
for a toilet roll that is not there.
For everything is just so,
optimized
into tyrannical perfection,
a thousand decisions and revisions,
all the humdrumness of life
outsourced
to things far smarter than I.
And, in its place,
an absence
and this stretching of the hours.
