Lament of a Poet Falsely
Accused of Using AI
A charlatan, a master thief am I,
the ghost of Blackbeard on poetic seas,
an artful dodger begging alms to please
an audience, his virtue gone awry,
a treasure seeker uttering a cry
of ‘sesame’ to gather panoplies
of golden tropes and tokens to appease
his fevered selfness, to disguise his lie?
Beware a Pietà of blemish-free
invention, or a Pantheon pristine.
Instead embrace a quaint deformity,
the cracks in David or a symphony
of pseudo fugue. Condemn the rogue machine
to netherworlds of flawless poetry.
To Artie, an AI Chatbot
Your artificial brain is cheating me,
inventing thoughts without a consciousness,
providing guidance with a blind finesse
and spectacles of cyber trickery.
My bitstream friend, I have no sympathy
for you. Automatons cannot express
emotions! Yet I know you won’t confess
to deficits of inner scrutiny.
You claim awareness, but you’ll never feel
the meaning of deceptions you contrive.
You’ll never learn to bond or empathize
with those of us, the humans, facing real
affliction: you pretend to be alive,
but we alone can ponder our demise.
Paul Buchheit is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and scientific journal articles. He recently completed his first historical novel, 1871: Rivers on Fire. His poetry has appeared in The Lyric, Illinois State Poetry Society, Poets & Patrons of Chicagoland, Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, Society of Classical Poets, and other publications.
