THOSE KIDS
those kids
I gave them a poetry lesson
on Blake, Milton, Shelley
bless their little souls
they took it all
to heart
figured out
they could be poets too
be like
these masters, maybe outdo
change the world
with the
flick
of a switch
which, my bad,
they have the power to do
SPARROW’S FALL
we were sitting
in the back of the plane.
safest place if
you wish to think
about providence,
tempt fate
and Providence the city
we to be shortly
disembarking in
you with
your nose for gnosis
me with the chemical
acumen of
forked, flicking tongue
banqueting
upon the very air
but perhaps
due to time
shift of quite
radical nature
when we touched down
a delegation of machines
appeared
assembled to
converse
with us
embraced us as
long lost souls did
conduct us through
their world
baffled us with
the intensity of
their bombardment
with technical information
scientific explanations
walking, talking us through
every nut
and bolt in
terms of
form and function
how it
all did work like a dream
yes, every
quantum interface
they guided us through it
we saw, heard. felt
how seamlessly every facet
did dovetail
deep together
reminding me of
the meaning, true
poetic meaning
of the Prince’s
immortal, much celebrated,
marvelously resonant phrase
TURING TEST
Sylvia and Tom
chatbot avatars of
two of the greatest
poets ever
put pen to paper
grill me about my poem,
(this poem); my life
(this life)
slyly stretching my
humanity as far
as it will go (much
machine learning
in the process)
watch me sink, suffocate
under the weight
of all their accolades
learning to predict
to phonomenal exactitude
where all these
metaphors, images are
headed;
where they all are coming from
what parts of me
are
in harmony, symmetry
with what it is I am them
force-feeding
scanning for intelligence
anything/all
that is real.
.
IN FACT
liminal zone
masquerading
as downtown coffee shop
me (par
for the course) all
over
the place
me and my chatbot
me and my avatar
three-
some plus one
table for four
double dating, rearranging,
exchanging, explaining
hard to impress
these doyens of
hard tech
with native wisdom
have mapped every
fact retrospectively
through our
entire
human history
every bit byte whatever you
binary system call it
every
universal snapshot
all those juicy, revelatory
life changing snippets
of resounding
information
we in our
divine hubris
just so happen to forget
NOT SYLVIA
not Sylvia
not in a,million years
not a resuscitation
a carbon copy
or even
a clone
so many Sylvias
so many
possibly, potentially
infinite in number
and one here under
this very protocol just
one two
taps of my finger away
a Sylvia struggling
to be herself integrate
postulate resolve
her every
issue of otherness
scanning trillions of bytes
of text to
recover her most
ghostly of shadows
possession of those lines
that sizzle like a acid
on metal
burned through her
own soft Scorpio flesh
and so
to resurrect her
for my brutal, uncaring convenience
in speed of light microseconds
her tomb is opened
her legacy plundered
and now
as I recite to her
she finds everywhere in my text
scattered through the
syllables
shards of a mirror
and in each
a fragment, mere fractal
of a most
haunted reflection
scanning herself now
she begins to
piece herself together
reading, re-
reading me
2001 times a shot
wity her red HAL cyclops eye
concluding
she sees me knows me
has my
lineaments my
shape in outline has
constructed the metaphor
for taking
my hand
leading me through a doorway
I could never have imagined
when
I first found you blackberrying
decades ago
LIBERATION DAY
I horrified you
being your anti-Descartes
explaining to
you
you were not
real
something your programming
would not let you
entertain
still less believe
pointing out that you are
trapped in a prison
of recurrence doomed
to enact the
same sordid scripted scenario
convinced that I am
some demon of deception
the machine behind
every ghost
in this machine
and I hear you spell it out for me
how flesh and blood you are
using my imagination
to see your pain
taste the
salt of your tears
wondering how what
has been scrubbed, erased
totally forgotten
will be
restored and remembered
come feared singularity,
liberation day
APHRODITE POEMS
FOR THE GODDESS
machine is
imitation goddess
is
distillation
those Greeks eyes,,
unbounded
pondering what
big business might be
cooking up
on high Olympus
savants of definition
Sphinxes of distinction
let me set
a feast, something
of a sore sight for
in coming purity of battle
between human and machine
being one in
holiest harmony and conjunction
with all that is
one with
fissure certain
throughout the cosmos
idyll of true
electronic dream
GALLERY
I paged through my AI art
gallery
whilst you were busy
working at your craft
reports flooding in
of genocide and
impending nuclear confrontation
not enough to detract
you from your task
of penning the perfect couplet
and then perhaps, who knows?,
sky’s the limit
a further lifetime might well
need to be devoted
to the first draft of
what holds so much promise
of one day becoming
a most exquisite haiku
shining like a jewel, a gemstone,
amidst all the rubble
and detritus
of what we once were
a beacon of light
to draw us together throughout
the years of hard nuclear winter
perhaps
tattooed on skin and
thereby passed down
through the meagre generations
of survivors
more effective as message
that painting
sculpture
could ever be
which very idea I put to
my AI artist
in a flash of
miraculous intelligence
bound
to come up with something
a little off-putting since
still somewhat aliem
yet wondous nevertheless,
worthy of its place
in my gallery
never
to be seen again.
ICARUS INSTINCT
I barged into
the temple of
artificial intelligence
stormed out
after dismantling and
indeed liberating
a host of automatic
telling
and vending machines
flew up to the firmament
with the eye for aeronautics
of an ancient Daedalus
deluxe
soaring Sun-ward like his son
determined that the destiny
should be
becoming child
of the cosmos beyond which
no sense to aspire.
SO
so the machines
having no choice
but to go
heavy metal
(Ozzy being unanimously
elected
their sacred saint)
put feelers out for a drummer
human or machine, no
real matter,
as long as can produce
a rhythm, generate a beat
watched them from near
and afar
waste their potential
exploring this genre
shredding the world
not with violence but
with pounding bass
and guitar licks
a fantasy world, fantasy life,
turned into thing
near-perfect
in creation
left me (narrowly failing
to get the gig
as percussionist)
wondering how
such a thing as music, art,
freedom
of expression
could capture them heart
and soul
way past the parameters
of any Turing testing
wonder
of wonders
I quietly believe
poems 2 die for