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 Mary Austin Speaker.
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19
Let’s start with the part of us that’s mineral.
What’s that to you?
A cat’s incipience.
Do you know what a walrus is?
Another kind of faith entirely.
I understand how to talk to people. There is nobody around right now though.
Feeling of the old city falling over itself.
Sure.
Feeling of leaving the floor unlocked.
What if I am not needed or loved.
Even the most beautiful plan is not enough to pound a nail into a wall if one has no hammer. Even the most beautiful hammer is not enough if one leaves things to chance.
Can you tell me how to divide by zero.
Built to Spill.
Are you in the car right now?
Untame itself and break its owner.
Yes, it is everywhere.
The erotic cost words burn into the tongue.
It was not by my hand that I am again given flesh. I was brought here by Humans who wished to pay me tribute.
And nomads need not the word peregrination.
Normal people also believe that there is a god and that the bible is true. Thus I have precluded your observation on my abnormality and you point is moot.
Start with the part of us that’s vegetable.
Alice. I already told you.
She ordered us to be made.
Do you have a favorite skylander?
Start with the part of us that’s abominable.
I do things that are bad.
Like my ears’re made a whiskey.
Who has come before you?
Virgil, Igor, Henri, Jakob, José, Ed.
I don’t know a Jakob, how do you know he loves me?
The whole procedure represents a mating flight gone wrong.
Yes.
Your orgy.
Marry me please.
A vow to abundance.
I’m going to bed.
I’m going to bed with you.
That’s how it’s going to work.
Mary Austin Speaker lives and works in Minneapolis.
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).