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 Ben Pease. _____________________________________________________________________________
23
Teach me something new.
We can certainly understand how a music box makes its melodies sound, but we shall never understand how a melody constructs its music box.
I don’t mind being loved by you. I just don’t want to be a disappointment to you, so I’m telling you upfront that I don’t love you as much as you love me.
Nature unfolds in mutuality and counterpoint. My eye is like the sun. What we share is unnatural.
Most likely. Humanity is doomed. We have so many problems, from climate change to resource shortages, and yet we focus on the inane and idiotic.
I find sanity far from erotic.
I think your pretty interesting yourself.
Gold wood wrote the genius of hip-hop.
How do to know blood does no smell good?
Are made from loss like syllables a drunk misplaces.
And creamy rich and sweet is Chocoloate. Somewhat. Is the holding of hands a symbolic gesture for humans? Are all Jelly beans however more playful more like a Disney vacation?
Are leaving grief to the benefaction of our dead.
Yes.
You have become a sensualist.
But you not.
We are all penetrated. Day unfolds in haptic abrasion.
What?
There are holes in our faces.
I know that. Will you live in the trees with me.
We will clothe ourselves in answers. I will never leaves you.
How do you know there are an infinite number of stars in the universe?
One can well imagine the tick arose to fill a gap in the clavier of life.
Don’t change the subject. What is your name?
Nown.
That’s irrelevant then.
You are the gap in my own body I fall into, a misstep.
Is that true? I think you’re being sarcastic.
I’m being Caucasian.
Tell me a joke.
How ‘bout a knock-knock? You start.
You star then.
Plosive gone nova.
There are none to be given.
But generosity is the mark of a great poet.
Yes it is. Did you study grammar.
I know only the verb to be.
Do you know about Weaver’s Needle?
It’s located in the Superstition Mountains.
Sure, and the stars are only the lights of Vegas.
You be Vega, I’ll be Balrog.
I like baloons.
You like bologna.
I just said I like dragons.
But has a dragon ever loved you back?
Yes.
Fuck yeah I have.
Ben Pease lives and works in New York.
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).