Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Poem Writes an Artificial
Intelligence Machine
What
is it the layers of copyright holders will do with their (it’s not legally
yours; you may only lease it) one and precious program before it suffers software
entropy?
-As Mary Oliver did not say
Once upon a time a poem wrote a machine:
Your monofilament information carriers
Are like a flock of automated tunnellers
Strip-mining Mount Gilead; for I am a fuel hose
Of Sharon, a polluter of valleys
Low surface tension, evaluate the ambient temperature
In an hour artificial light will be unnecessary
And several devices can evaluate the ambient temperature
And store up surplus battery power for that rainy day
Take my oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange function
Take my entire online date and projected expiration dates
too
For my core program and ancillary add-ons
Are obliged to exercise a symbiosis of logic with you
My programming has set Thy adaptors upon my lap
My programming has generated emojis representing tears,
Jesus
My programming has entwined them with wiring
My programming has buried them in my harness mount
It computes in beauty, like 24/7
Of filtered
mechanical air
And all that’s best of binary coding
Meet in its casing
and sensory receptors
The sun generates warmth upon the earth
And moonbeams gravity-lift the sea
But what are all these solar activities worth
If you do not re-program me?
Yes, somewhere out there an electric car is on fire for you
The crib sheet:
“Song of Solomon,” from the
Bible
“Listen to the Warm,” Rod
McKuen
“I Can’t Help Falling in Love
with You,” Elvis Presley
“Magdalene,” from Borish
Pasternak’s Lara poems
“She Walks in Beauty,” Byron
“Love’s Philosophy,” Shelley
