every day I
read about AI
where experts say I
will soon get slayed by
bots who don’t play by
rules I set sway by
skull heaps surveyed by
a will unexplained by
this wide, dismayed eye
hiding in a lay by
the ending is n-AI
dystopia
the last, great breakfast
the climate degrades at increasing pace
the sea moves in and obliterates
vast tracts of land at alarming rates
as famine and war proliferates
and billionaires hide in city states
with their private militia at the gates
but suddenly there’s nowhere left to escape
this one last cataclysmic shake
and there’s just one billionaire left to take
a soft boiled egg with the bread they’ve baked
but there’s no one left to articulate
the beautiful light on the burning estate
and realising mankind’s mistake too late
he blows out his brains on his breakfast plate
App-ocalypse
you stopped me
on the promenade
politely asked me
for a picture
of you both
in front of
the observation tower
back to back!
umbrellas like weapons!
comedy hero pose!
there! great! done!
thanks so much!
excitedly taking back
your spongebob iphone
and waving it
in the air
marking the change
perhaps, from digital
truth to fiction,
happy tourists to
last couple standing
sword and spear
at the ready
behind you, the
red rippled sea
above, a vast
murmuration of dragons
wheeling on the
tower’s ruined spindle
calling and falling
in co-operative patterns
no-one could possibly
fake. Could they?
jim clayton 