Midnight, stars twinkle
mosquitos buzz
the sound of flowing water
an occasional splash

A bull frog croaks out a beat
and the tree frogs sing harmony
the owl lead sings from the trees
and the cicada sings backup

My black light illuminates
the night purple
as flying insects glow
as does the crawling scorpion

Monofilament fishing line
creates purple lines
running into the water
like lasers fired

Watching and waiting
on the riverbank
for the line to quiver
and the rod to bend

Night crawlers squirm
in their styrofoam bowl
waiting their turn
to search for catfish

Dogfish bait and a late teasing wind
slacks the line, the one binding
monofilament of time
and lost momentum
sagged from a raft adrift -
waiting -
and never enough
to sum the formulae,
the vagaries,
vicissitudes,
uncoiling from the reel
set with loose drag.

A stag in the sea still drowns,
still thrashes until the rack
goes down
one
last
time
one
last
breath
before the flounder is spitting
hair and bone
and the titanic hulk
becomes the soft stuff
of mollusks.

O, crawler of the night, I pray
That thou doth not resent this day.
Grudge me not that I must take
A hook to make thy belly ache.

But in this murky pond, methinks..
And as thou on an egg weight sinks,
That swimming knight in plated mail
Might be inclined to munch thy tail.

And thus be caught, yet try to sprint
From straining monofilament.
But I, Oh I, the water's lord
Shall see knight lay on cutting board.

Forgive me, friend, for this, my vice.
I'll not let fade thy sacrifice.
In verse I'll speak thy final plight..
My supper's final meal tonight.

© Nathan A. Brock

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