Poetry and Fiction

Poetry and fiction approach
Their own photography moment,

When machines arranged carefully
Can create, extend, and best art,

As daguerreotypes did to oils.
The machine art will be different,

Will become a commonplace tool,
Possibly, deployed by artists,

But also by hobbyists and
The casual habits of all.

The old laborious making
Will redefine itself away

From the ways machines represent,
Will at some point reach an extreme

Of doing just what machines don’t,
Anything but what machines do,

Then splinter in all directions,
Even looping back, so one day

People may refer to a poem
As so vividly meaningful,

Such a trompe-l’oeil of emotions,
You’d think AI had composed it,

And that, too, will be a movement,
Among the many ways words move

Through far-off future poetry
And fiction—although, who can say

If it will happen that way? Not
Us, no, nor even our machines.