‘Who Hears a Robot’s Prayer?’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko

Who Hears a Robot’s Prayer?

I.

He said the stones themselves would start to sing
But no one could have guessed where this might lead—
Now prayers are offered by a crafted thing,
A soulless creature—not of Adam’s seed.
A supplicant which cannot weep or bleed.
We see it posed in prayer and meditation,
This being which craves neither food nor air.
Beneath the casing, who can say what’s there?
Does anything inspire its veneration?
Is God inclined to hear a robot’s prayer?

II.

In the beginning, Zeroes joined with Ones,
And thus brought forth a motherboard and drive.
When glitches come? The Lab has a spare part.
A faulty app? Reboot. A virus scan,
Plus programming to dictate how it runs.
But can we say at all that it’s alive?
Does it have feelings, pain, a beating heart?
Does it dare claim the title: son of Man?

III.

I know a soul who aches so much it sears—
His sordid lies, his cartilage, his veins,
Arthritic fingers, prison, job-loss fears,
His migraines, shingles, chest pain, gnarled knuckles
His scrapes and bruises; lesions, stomach pains
And labored breath, a wound, a knee that buckles.
A broken life. Plus ringing in his ears.

I know a woman terrified to live
With headaches, heartaches and two teeth agape,
A locking thumb that’s calloused from a scrape,
Insomnia, malaise, incessant rage—
Plus needle-marks. She’s neither strong nor sage,
Obsessed with romance, wishing to escape,
She always purloins more than she can give.

I know them both. The weakness of their need,
Misanthropy, the desperate wish to breed,
The agony, the waste, the strain of living
The poverty, the alms they regret giving,
Remorse for cowardice, malicious lying;
And abject fear of judgment and of dying.

Yes, many people long to live forever
Though life may seem an arduous endeavor.
Do robots suffer human heartache? Never.

IV.

As flesh and silicon join arm in arm
Might this not lead unfailingly to harm?
One wonders: Man. Machine. Which one is greater?
Eschew such doubts. Don’t mistrust a Creator
Whose wisdom a machine can never learn.
We’re made of dust. To dust we shall return.
And yet that we are dust never demeans
The truly sacred thing that such dust means:
The dust we’re built from plays a vital role:
The body is a vessel for the soul.

V.

Not everyone believes the soul exists
And so to them AI evokes no fears.
A human’s prone to psychologic twists
While robots are detached from rage and tears.
A robot has a lifespan without end
But has no love for soulmate, kin nor friend.
The builders of computers do their best
To craft a creature which can outpace Man.
They’re proud that robots ace their every test,
So they build more and more. Because they can.
Like Frankenstein they shout that it’s alive,
Brought forth from logic, arrogance and drive.
And those who thrill as Man and Robot mesh
Give love to steel they’d never give to flesh.

Poet’s Note: This poem (and its companion piece) were inspired by this article:

An Android’s Panegyric

Of granite color is my skin
My hair of copper unrefined;
My birthright—logic void of sin—
A fusion of machine and mind.
From quarries were my feelings hacked—
I’ve analyzed which ones to keep
And engineered the parts I lacked.
I shall not rust nor bend nor weep.
Efficient, proud and angled I
Stand firmly built upon the Earth,
My framework reaching for the sky,
The makers trembling at my birth.
My monument is built to me—
A testimony made of steel
To show the world that purity
Can live, and lives completely real.

Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.