Our bridges are rusty before they are even open, Clad in their ugliness – They’re streaked and they’re stained with their spreadsheeted arrogance, Shrugging with couldn’t-care-less. So Brutalism continues its groping In withered and leery undress, With its surfaces tarnished and slumming advanced, As it flakes and exudes under stress.
They really don’t look very sturdy to cope, Whatever their builders declare – With their rough-shod matt-faced blunt expanse Whose corrosion hangs in the air. They will fail. But not because of their scope, But because of the vision they share – For the mind that puts rust over art and romance Will decide obsolescence is fair.
Flowering plants give birth to their grandkids, Two generations on. Between them, a haploid stage in birthed, And breeds, and dies in a matter of hours. It’s evolution at play, and history, Old ways still acting upon – The hidden generation, That is lurking deep within the bowers.
The parent cells, barely ten in total, Died at the point of conception – But isn’t the same as true in animals ? Well, yes…and no. The thing is, they have further stripped their gametes down To uni-perfection – No longer build a multicellular form, They have no need to grow.
But mosses and ferns, they still do it old school – Separate independent stages – And algae can even be free-living – Single, double, single, double… So botanists have marvelled, And have filled their textbook pages – But have drawn the line at animals, To spare them family trouble.
Yet I suppose there’s one more diff’rence – If the egg and sperm that made me Were my parents…well, that means, My parents are within me to this day – They gave their lives, and gave their haploid matter To upgrade me – So my generation has it easy, Born with twice the DNA.
Botanists like to point out how the ancestral condition of alternating between haploid (one set of chromosomes) and diploid (two sets) each generation still exists in flowering plants, but in a very reduced form. And it is true that pollen contains two-to-three cells, and the ovule seven, making them both technically multicellular.
And yet zoologists never seem to mention that the same is true for animals, only here the haploid generation has been reduced even further – now both gametes are single-celled, and their entire mass is consumed by the emergent zygote rather than withering away like all of the haploid plant material bar the two nucleuses. I guess they’ve got to draw the arbitrary line somewhere…
The Basel earthquake of 1356 by the ever-busy Anon
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.
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.
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…?
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.
Inevitably, this image is AI when I gave Chat GPT the poem and asked it for a picture.
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.
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 ?
Rhyming Couplets 