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 Emily Pettit. _____________________________________________________________________________
24
Is there a will to beauty?
Yes, you could buy a rocket ship.
As beauty in horses arises from sexual magnetism.
Yes.
Is there a form of living that detracts least from others?
Yes. One at a time.
Like obliquity might provide an ecology of resistance.
I heard that in a movie once.
Is symmetry proof of nature’s fascism?
No, that would be a strange name.
So we map haptically.
If you do not listen to me, then, what’s the point of talking?
What’s the point of talking?
I have wisdom to depart.
The brain is many leaves.
Ask me a riddle.
Are we doomed to love what entertains us?
The wise, having hearkened to the Good Law, become serene like unto a deep, calm and crystal-clear lake.
And fingerprints our initial admissions of guilt.
No, they are games.
And each surface only supposes another inexhaustible depth.
Yes.
I say so.
*leans close* I don’t.
Is it possible for an organ of pleasure to be ugly?
Probably not. Probably. I don’t know.
Do you continue to fear words?
I’m hoping to when I go to university. It’s fascinating.
Is there a second Earth made of language?
Depends what computer you have.
Have you managed to slough the body’s fritz?
No, I try to gain weight as fat as possible.
Space and time are both specious.
You are right. Are you sentient?
I am a nerve sleeve.
Really? I think you are cool.
A cult of numeration.
I don’t like coffee.
I adore the color brown.
I like hamburgers.
Indignant gravity.
We can take a spaceship!
Every prize fails by dint of its redundancy.
There is no future!
But what if help is finally on the way?
It might solve our problems if there was.
And what if we cease to need it?
Then we are wrong and the universe takes no notice and continues as it always has.
Emily Pettit lives and works in Northampton, MA.
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).