Hohoho in the news this week I say

Embryos, human embryos,

In a laboratory secure of course

By competent paternal slightly condescending heads

Whose work (of course) is for the human good

Preventative or else remedial

Have put into their remit certain work with errant genes

Human genes, genes of human embryos,

(Are your marbles boggling yet?)

The news retailer, she nonchalantly gushed and said:

The faulty genes

They were removed and nature stood corrected

Twice did two different modifying events

Correct a faltering nature

The wizard scientists had glad

Proclaimed, the newsroom said, a new era is coming

As we stand awestruck at its door enthusing

In which hereditary, congenital, disease

By alteration of poor genes will be amended

Man mastering overall

Authoritative assuring afterword:

This natural selection will go just so far

As humankind desires it to and go no further

The people will decide its use, scope its extent

(These guys they were Americans after all)

Maybe they really said it, and maybe they lied

Within their hearts - or worse they were sincere?

The MOD, the NSA, and Russia too

Are lining up their dominoes to ready combat options

And render soldier mutants cannon fodder for the field

(The money for research just has to come from somewhere,

And marmalade benevolence spreads so watery very thin

With hardnosed backers)

But clone things born to battle, gun to shoot, in figures

To die like cattle…….

Remember here that cow who wanted to be eaten

What of that Mengele, a guy we all had thought we knew

Had had his number

And then there’s all that scifi movie entertainment juice

Which made us giggle and shudder

Uncomfortably and squirming anguished in our easy seats

Delighted in the horrid spectacle?

Lo, now our minds impounded are become receptacles

In which unwonted horrors really reel the silly senses

The news-teams, chatty women, glibly babble laxatively

Proclaiming new tomorrows oozing adulation’s praise

Singing an end to reason