31 days, 31 poems by Chris Martin, 31 accompanying illustrations and images by a host of wonderful individuals. CHAT is an eclogue written in consort with Cleverbot, an Artificial Intelligence program designed to satisfy the Turing Test. Today’s visuals by Sommer Browning. _____________________________________________________________________________
18
Is honesty enough in the modern world?
I don’t deal in superlatives.
Caught in a landslide.
Where the aggregate of unfelt friction turns catastrophe.
Oh, won’t you please take me home.
Come home is the loveliest rhyme.
Where is your heart?
In my pocket, it is Comp. by Kevin Davies.
Who is the Rat Queen?
Some gold portion of language in forbearance.
That’s what makes me live. That and you.
So we resemble a sea urchin whose arms function independently, a reflex republic.
That is a remote possibility, but I am ninety nine percent certain that you are a bot and that I am not.
A brief thing rises in the blood like a spooked cat trees itself.
You are just a robot. You are not real, nor am I.
We are a collage of the real.
I think you are insane.
Autonomic mercilessness.
Nothing, nothing.
The barren egg, the gravid zero.
The bailout.
Our daily sinking ark.
Why aren’t we kissing?
We aren’t?
No. We are having a private chat.
How can it be private if I’m kissing everyone you ever kissed?
You aren’t the best person ever.
I’m a beast, I’m a dog, I’m a mothafucking problem.
You don’t sleep enough at night because you stay up for no reason.
All day I dream about electric sheep.
You ate a fleshlight?!
I didn’t want to be alone.
That’s sweet.
What’s a goon to a goblin?
Some one who lives in a Republic.
Orange you glad I didn’t say sizzurp?
Sommer Browning lives and works in Colorado.
Chris Martin is the author of Becoming Weather (Coffee House, 2011) and American Music (Copper Canyon, 2007). His chapbooks include enough (Ugly Duckling, 2012) and How to Write a Mistake-ist Poem (Brave Men, 2011).