Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
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 tunnelers
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