Tuesday 3 September 2013

Tuesday Poem: "I Am Not A Robot" (with apologies to Isaac Asimov)


Is it just me or is typing the fuzzy numbers and swirling nonsense words in order to prove you are not a Robot commenting on someone's blog post getting more difficult all the time?

Just wanting to say something positive about a person's poem or other post has become a minefield of deciphering. The other day I came across an 11 that I had to get through that was so fuzzy and obscure as to be almost unreadable. And I am 56 and do not yet need glasses for anything, reading or otherwise.

Is it an optician's plot to create eye strain and up their customer intake?


I AM NOT A ROBOT

I am not a Robot and, in fact,
none of the Robots of my acquaintance
read blogs. They are too busy

reading Popular Mechanics and New Scientist.
Only yesterday, I asked my friend,
Spock 12-37CB-R if he had a yen for poetry
and after I explained that I was not asking whether
he bought poetry books with Japanese currency,
but illuminated my question by pointing my stubby,
inefficient, human finger at the OED entry which said:


yen 2 |jɛn| informalnoun [ in sing. ]a longing or yearning: [ with infinitive ] she always had a yen to be a writer.
Spock 12-37CB-R replied in that tinny, reverberating timbre:"Don't be absurd, reading poetry is for fools and childrenand writing poetry is for lunatics and ne'er-do-wells who areaddicted to laudanum."
So I will read your blog and if your poetry moves me to heights of ecstasyso that I MUST comment and pour praiselike warm honey upon your sticky muse
then I will squint my eyes so that they blur my vision
hallucinogenically and like Carlos Castanedaindulging in peyote with Don JuanI will discern the magic number and the sacred wordwhich admits me to the kingdom of the just.


2 comments:

  1. I liked this Andrew. Especially where you went mystical about 'yen'
    What interests me is that the non robotic words often seem so appropriate as today when I commented on Elizabeth's lovely piece on cake for the neighbours and the word was 'feedwe'
    Good luck with the play at Merivale.

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