It Was Only A Tool: A Poem

In Florence, paint was labour before praise,
lapis crushed slowly, billed to velvet names.
A chapel ceiling learned to lift its gaze,
while bankers hid their logos in the flames.

The patron leaned back, squinting at the Lord,
"More gold, less hunger. Make the shadows clean.
Could God look wealthy? Could belief afford
to feel eternal and still sell the scene?"

The painter smiled; the landlord would not wait,
and even saints need someone funding grace.
He painted heaven expensive and great,
then set their family crest by God's face.

They loved the brush for making power cool,
and still they said it was only a tool

Then Austen's world sat down to tea and rules,
where women smiled and swallowed what they knew.
But pages turned those parlours into schools,
and every polished sentence was aimed true.

A joke wore gloves, then cut beneath the lace.
A dance revealed who owned the air and why.
A marriage plot put power in its place,
then made good manners look a lot like lies.

The books moved hand to hand through borrowed rooms,
while critics frowned and gossip learned to spread.
She mapped the traps beneath the drawing-rooms,
and made rebellion sound like sense instead.

The pen could make all power look a fool,
and still they said it was only a tool.

Then came cameras, screens, and endless feeds,
where every face could bend toward what sold.
The work grew cleaner, quicker in its speed,
while sunsets learned to sell themselves as gold.

The tablet woke; the stylus kissed the glass.
Undo forgave the first imperfect try.
No ruined canvas and no awkward past.
No fingerprints to prove the hand passed by.

We posted art and watched it drop from view
beneath the next bright hunger, next, then next.
The feed gave everyone a brief "love you,"
then chewed their names into its moving text.

We loved the screen for making notice cool,
and still we said it was only a tool.

Then AI came, and never needed sleep,
nor lost its nerve halfway through something new.
It never cursed a draft it had to keep,
or dragged an idea until it grew.

We fed it books, old songs, unfinished art,
our jokes, hopes, dreams, grief, love, and private scraps.
It learned the words that pass for having heart,
then sold them back as shining little maps.

We asked it first to smooth a single line,
then whole new worlds appeared before we tried.
Why climb the hill when it could fake the climb?
Why make the thing when making came supplied?

We loved the ease and called surrender fuel,
and still we said it was only a tool.

Then life ran smooth on borrowed little thoughts,
no awkward start, no glorious mistake.
A poem, face, or future could be bought
before a human hand had time to shake.

The feeds wrote jokes and perfect sorry texts;
the schools called prompting “learning how to feel.”
The lovers sent what apps suggested next,
then wondered why the words felt clean, not real.

One girl grew tired of answers pre-arranged,
of every wild thing softened into sense.
She wanted something rough enough to change,
a line that had to earn its own defence.

She opened up a notebook after school,
and in her hand, it was only a tool.