Memento Mori

Memento Mori

Echoes rumble through the aging
shells of burnt-out starships.
Grave-robbing human droids
plunder long discarded skeletons,
remnants of an interplanetary past.

High-tensile intercostal muscles
stripped and coiled, funerary
rites neglected. Once mighty
deflector shields lie gutted,
scattered shards of safety,
toothless now.

Forgotten rituals once armed these
chariots to distant galaxies,
techno-secrets interred with minds
no longer sentient.  Ruthless
scavengers have shattered the
Rosetta stones.  Mankind will
no more travel to the stars.