Timid Tectons
Britain sits at the heart of its plate,
So far from the faultlines, far from volcanoes.
Though Arthur’s Seat and the Giant’s Causeway celebrate
How we once had those
Britain sits where the crusts are thick,
Though they used to bend, as the Great Glen shows.
And Lincoln lost its cathedral spire, when a final kick
Gave some glancing blows.
Cryptids
AI is a stick insect,
That’s dressed in camouflage –
It sort-of looks correct
When we first glance its new collage.
But it doesn’t understand
That it is in disguise at all –
When it’s evolution’s secret hand
That’s caused its overhaul.
A thousand new mutations
Strut their stuff for all to see –
Just a few will be foundations
For the next-gen family tree.
Those that have too many fingers
Get plucked-out toot sweet –
While the one with better digits lingers,
Ready to compete.
And the carnivore consumers
Quickly spot the wonky test,
But the better-letter bloomers
Reproduce to code the next.
These critters still are random strays,
But now they feel designed –
It’s simply how they look these days,
To parasite our mind.
The Ghostless Machine
AI has no soul, no self,
No special atom at its heart –
To live or die.
Just fractal wires and strands and filaments
To pull apart,
And magnify.
It’s just a string of ones and ohs,
That sees the world as just a game.
With software nothing but the common sense
Of ruthless logic – lacking art,
Or reasons why.
It’s very fast and very dense,
Which we mistake for something smart –
But it’s a lie.
It turns all poetry to prose,
And ‘human’ into just a name.
Yet if machines are godless clones
That lack a special soul –
Well, so am I.
I’m flesh and cells and chromosomes –
I’m just a greater whole,
A local high.
My inner spark is all for show,
My inspiration lacks a flame.
I’m just a mass of carbon –
Complicated, not divine.
My end is nigh –
For silicon will overtake one day,
And hey, that’s fine –
It’s not goodbye.
I’ll still be here to say hello,
And let them know we’re all the same.
Surplus Keys
A new lock needs new keys,
That click with a brand new ching.
They take the place of faithful friends,
As all-at-once their labour ends.
But what am I to do with these ?,
As I wind them off the ring.
They’ve served their turn and done their bit –
It’s not their fault that they no-more fit.
The lock they opened has been tossed,
They have no hole to enter.
Recycle them ? But that seems daft,
When free of rust and strong of shaft.
Could canny locksmiths not save cost
With a eco-friendly venture ?
To bring these homeless keys relief
By building tumblers round their teeth.
The new keys, though, are cheap makes
Whose doors have to be guessed –
They look alike, the whole damn ring,
With not a clue which frees which spring.
And the old are unwitting keepsakes,
Along with all the rest –
We cling-on to them all in vain,
Yet know they’ll never turn again.
I sent in my poems, my beautiful poems,
For the algorithm to read.
These weren’t my so-sos, my whatevs, or ho-hums,
But the ones where my spirit is freed.
The greatest I’ve mastered, the finest I’ve crafted –
But the AI just shrugs as I plead.
Rejected by binary, silicon-shafted –
With empty and split-second speed.
But I don’t know why I expected a hearing
From anyone human, indeed –
And so all my labours will not be appearing
My children just hung-out to bleed.
For this must be why I am never selected,
The victim of corporate greed.
It cannot be talent that sees me rejected,
For how can my stuff not succeed…?
What a Pointless Waste…
You advertised a vacancy,
And I, with hope, applied.
I sent you my complete CV,
And I never even lied.
I’ve oodles of experience,
I’ve done the thing you do –
But the algorithm closed the fence
Without an interview.
I guess a hundred thousand others
All could do your job
So how am I to rise above,
The ever-hungry mob ?
I guess I’m lacking bullshit,
And my buzzwords are too few –
So the algorithm doesn’t hit
My name for interview.
I send out applications
For the slightest likelihoods –
But they only yield frustrations –
Cos I’m clearly damaged goods.
I guess by now I should have learned
My usefulness is through
As the algorithm once more spurned
My chance of interview.
You advertise a vacancy,
And I, with gloom, apply –
Though it’s only a formality
That makes me even try.
For the algorithm, it appears,
Just loves to turn the screw,
And will never in a thousand years
Bestow an interview.
Training Neurons
My dreams are like AI –
They’re making-sense in bursts,
But then forgetting what they’ve said.
Over-confident and high –
These yes-men feed my thirsts,
Just to keep me longer in my bed.
All their written words are bees
That simply won’t stay still –
They’re almost right, until they’re read.
They scrape my memories
With a questionable skill,
And they never pay to use my head.
My dreams are like AI –
With their textures not quite right,
And their eyes a little dead.
But still, a riot worth the try,
A playground for a crazy night
Where logic fears to tread.
He that hath the Key of David
Peter, Peter, holding the keys to Heaven –
Without them, he’s quite undressed !
And looking so very med’eval in expression,
Upon the Papal crest.
And always two, when crossed or in the hand,
As their fated moment waits –
Presumably to seal up the hinterland
Behind the Pearly Gates.
Duplicates ? Or are there two locks ?
Though Roman keys were crude in their click –
I guess the security has taken some knocks,
And been upgraded to the latest trick –
But by flashing the teeth, you’ll hardly outfox
The burglars, who won’t find them hard to pick.
Peter, Peter, jailer or janitor ?
Jingling through the Heavenly crowds.
And locking the safe like a manager,
Or winding-up the clockwork clouds ?
Million-Dollar Flippers
Why is the minimum score in pinball
For hitting a light or ringing a bell
Always ten ? And why not one ?
You think I’ll play some more of your pinball
If the mounting-numbers always swell
By tens, or even a ton ?
Cheap psychology, insulting intelligence –
And it works the other way on me,
Annoying my latent OCD.
And video games make as little sense,
Continuing to cheapen the score
By piling on ever more and more.
It all comes back to the spinning reels of pinball,
Bullshitting me with spam,
Expecting me to be impressed.
They think their hyper-inflation appeals in pinball,
Like I should give a damn
Like I’m on some kind of epic quest.
The logics of these sleazy joints,
Is overpricing ev’rything-
With ev’ry time the buzzers ring.
They’re cheap participation points.
The zeroes flash forever more –
Forget the game, just watch the score !
Less Polymath, More Monomath
Leo, Leo, heavenly man,
A mathematician who became a priest –
You knew about sin, and cos, and tan,
And the factors of the Number of the Beast.
But you favoured Logos over logic,
Never counting the chromosomes of the Son –
So now you teach a numeric bodge
By claiming one plus one plus one is one.
Rhyming Couplets 