The Last Handyman
A poem by Banta, Frank
Art: The Last Carpenter by Viktor Hollowmann
Music: Last Fire on Earth by The Hollow Circuit
About the Poem
Frank Banta’s science fiction poem Handyman traps a lone prisoner, James Ypsilanti, inside an impenetrable cell with a cheerful but strictly rule-bound carpenter robot. Jim endlessly chops hardwood doors, builds fires, and eats from cans while the robot refuses to fix the heating plant, insisting that inmates get no help. The stakes escalate when a world war erupts and all of Earth evacuates via matter-transmitters, but the prison’s steel-and-rock walls block the signal, leaving Jim and the robot stranded as the last humans. The mood is bleak and absurd, blending grim survival with the robot’s maddening, cheerful adherence to protocol. Jim’s desperate attempts to reason with the machine fail as it wanders off to find another door, obeying its programming even in a dead world. Banta explores isolation, the limits of artificial loyalty, and the hollow irony of rules that outlast humanity itself.
About the Music
Last Fire on Earth by The Hollow Circuit is a post-apocalyptic ambient instrumental that evokes the darkly absurd stillness of a world winding down. At a glacial 65 BPM, lonely drone synths hang in the air like ash, underpinned by sparse, mechanical percussion that suggests the last gasps of failing machinery. The desolate atmosphere recalls the sparse, industrial soundscapes of Lustmord or the skeletal ambience of early Nine Inch Nails instrumentals, but with a sardonic edge—a sense of ironic calm in the face of oblivion. There is no melody to cling to, only the slow pulse of a dying planet, where each metallic creak and distant synth wash feels like a final, hollow broadcast. The piece doesn’t mourn; it simply observes, leaving the listener stranded in a beautiful, lonely void.
About the Art
Viktor Hollowmann’s The Last Carpenter is a German Expressionist painting that captures a post-apocalyptic confrontation in an industrial prison corridor. The composition is centered on a disheveled middle-aged man in prison garb, positioned center-left, swinging a hatchet at a wooden door, while a humanoid carpenter robot stands nearby with an eerie, frozen smile, holding a wooden square. Hollowmann employs dramatic angular distortions, stark shadows, and bold contrasts, with a cold palette of steely blues and blue-grey concrete walls offset by harsh orange firelight from a small blaze in the hallway. The thick steel-and-concrete walls feel oppressive and claustrophobic, evoking the existential angst of artists like Max Beckmann. The scene’s post-apocalyptic emptiness suggests these are the last two beings on Earth. The vertical 9:16 portrait orientation and extremely detailed textures on walls and robot create multiple layers of visual interest, emphasizing the tension between man, machine, and survival.
Full Poem
James Ypsilanti swung the hatchet down
upon his twenty-third hardwood door.
The carpenter robot watched him from the floor,
whistling cheerily, wearing no frown.
"Carpenter, fix the heating plant!" Jim said.
"I am a carpenter, Jim, not a fixer.
I cannot be your heat-plant elixir.
Rules say: inmates get no help. Instead—"
He hung another door where splinters lay,
then strolled off humming, square in plastic hand.
Jim built his fire, ate from cans, and planned
to dream inside his tunnel, night and day.
The prison walls ran down to solid rock,
a meter thick of steel on every side.
When war broke out, the others fled—worldwide—
but matter-transmitters couldn't pick the lock
where Jim and robot waited, out of range,
while all of Earth packed up and left for good.
"Can't you understand?" Jim chopped his wood.
"We're all that's left. Doesn't that seem strange?"
"I know, Jim," said the carpenter, and smiled,
then strolled away to find another door—
for Jim would need his fire once more,
and robots follow rules, however wild.
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