No one has ever seen Mr. Cobol.
He's like an eclipse, we all use special mirror boxes, but still
he is bright, electrical, and smells of Ozone cologne.
His disembodied voice materializes out of the intercom.
"Get down from there and report to my office."
Which one of me, I wonder?
No one has ever been to Mr. Cobol's office.
It's said it's down a long hall, through a tube and up a ladder.
Some say he dances there on the head of a pin.
I select full harlequin costume and megaphone,
trumpeting, "Mr. Cobol, Mr. Cobol. wherefore art thou, Mr. Cobol?"
It's not love, but it's urgent. I need this paycheck.
Mr. Cobol responds--out of the ether!--with mechanical poetry
any simp could compose. I loose my infinite number of monkeys
and hear Mr. Cobol howl jaggedly, bleeding junk data.
Now Mr. Cobol's shadow self emerges, creeping though the ducts
for the air conditioning and all of our eyes. Many go blind.
I play a saw, wahhh wooooaaahh slashing his scores, stee-rike!
Some say that Mr, Cobol is the Ultimate Umpire,
regal, invisible, all-powerful, robed in Rules like Nebuchadnezzar
and the score is always 1-0. I saw lovely Sally in half, now there's 2.
It's said that Mr. Cobol has learned to play the saw, too,
but I know better. My monkeys have him moaning wahhh woooahh
over the intercom, making calculations, spitting out memos.
Me: Two.
MC: One!!!!
Monkeys: five!!!
MC: zeeeerroooooo...
Me: Nine!
MC; zee roooe
Monkeys: Nein!
Mc: uhhhhhwaahhh oooo
Me: Since I sawwww her standing there!
MC: oeeoowww, oggghh
Monkeys: Not your steppin' stone!
Me: Stoned?
MC: one...zero...liftoff...
Monkeys: happy trails, pardner!
Me: Haw! better skeedaddle!
MC:
MC:
MC: master
MC: master of
MC: Master of Ceremonies
Monkeys: Evacuate!
Me, wearing balloon pants and tapping head: Can't touch this!
Bette Davis: Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
_________
for desperatepoets "Slam At The Singularity Corral. "
Note: In All About Eve, Bette Davis actually said "bumpy night", not "bumpy ride", but the misquote serves my ending better.
Music: William Mapother plays the saw for Brit Marling in Another Earth.
I loved this so much. As I commented on Brendan's site, no bot will EVER out-write you!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThey will try and they will fail.
DeleteUnique and mesmerizing. Definitely can’t touch this!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderfully creative take on the prompt. AI has definitely met its match in you. Suzanne (Wordpress blog - Mapping Uncertainty)
ReplyDeleteYou are sooo awesome. wahhh wooooaaahh.
ReplyDeleteYes, AI poetry is pretty mechanical now but I think it will get better as it figures it out. In the non-poet/ not poetry aficionado world, people are already appreciating its skills, if you go by the number of forwarded AI poems each day! It's an interesting space to watch. I like your creative take on the prompt.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, that is so crazy great. I can't stop reading it. hhhhwaahhh oooo!!!! Holy crap.
ReplyDeleteMy fear is less that the digital snowball Cobol will pitch better and better close games (1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 0-0), but that all dem monkeys will pare off as a result and leave us glued to an infinite bland result. That the circus carnival masquerade byzantium of poetry and poems to come will forget the dire need for infinite selving. He'll be back, Coal. Bowing infinitely the same on that oow-wah oompah saw. Keep it up. Thanks fo the harlequin insane, not for what it might allay in the chat machine (it eats everything) but for the bar it lifts for poetry 2023. We don't pay attention and its hasta la vista, baby.
ReplyDeleteI sat and watched this poem with a giant tub of popcorn and I loved every minute of it. When's the sequel?
ReplyDeleteLove the whole point of view, the crazed monkeys and the annoyingly prolific and phantasmal Mr. Cobol, programming his minions of whom we all are one, for purposes horrific in their triviality. I especially liked "..creeping though the ducts/
ReplyDeletefor the air conditioning and all of our eyes.." I spit upon them all. Fine work, Shay, and as others have said, AI can just eat its heart out with you.
I like the fire and ingenuity in this. It's going to take a lot of that as we venture into this Brave New AI World, just to have the heart to keep coming back as AI spits in lighning speed our own cliches back at us.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the seamless style nods and switches; dont think AI will self-rise to achieve this, nor that it will be programmed to "be alike".
ReplyDeleteI absolutely second Paul's comment above, ha ha! Fantastic :-D I bloody love this bit:
ReplyDelete"I select full harlequin costume and megaphone,
trumpeting, "Mr. Cobol, Mr. Cobol. wherefore art thou, Mr. Cobol?"
It's not love, but it's urgent. I need this paycheck.
Mr. Cobol responds--out of the ether!--with mechanical poetry
any simp could compose. I loose my infinite number of monkeys"
And the Bette Davis ending is the icing on the cake :-)