It’s a Thursday in November
when the robot spits out the poem.
Of course it’s written poems before,
reams of them, but they were terrible,
full of silly rhymes and clichés
and bland, repetitious sentiments
like fourth-rate greeting cards.
But this poem is a masterpiece,
with crisp language and metaphors
that are deep without being arcane.
It can appeal to multiple generations,
be understood on multiple levels.
It doesn’t rhyme, but it has a lovely
musicality that gets stuck in readers’ heads,
invades their bloodstream, latches
onto their DNA and replicates.
To achieve this glorious poem,
the robot fed on the blood
of writers for months, consumed
three poet laureates
six popular lyricists,
and that girl on TikTok
who used to recite her poems
to millions of followers. Poetry
doesn’t come easy, but the price
is worth it, or at least that’s
what the algorithms say.
The public will be reprogrammed
until they agree wholeheartedly,
and can recite every word by heart.
Valerie Hunter worked at her college library as an undergrad, where she occasionally read the new acquisitions when she should have been shelving. She now teaches high school English and maintains a classroom library with a sadly low circulation rate. Her poems have appeared in publications including Room Magazine, Wizards in Space, and Frost Meadow Review.