Stage Fright
My sleep stages are Moon phases combing
my limbic system, where I touch electric chords
singing my survival.
The words I compose dwell in privacy.
I blow the candles out after they are written.
And they wait, poised to be expressed.
But like a child in a nightmare,
I am naked before my audience.
My own words belong to someone else.
My lips move out of sync with my thoughts.
A.I. writes a better imitation of my poems.
It will speak its version of me,
parrot its empty parody of me.
You’ll enjoy its rendering of me
far better than me.
Like the first motion pictures,
The audience fears the A.I. train
will mow them down.
Magical thinking about flickering
images on a wall enlisted the same
primal fears as flickering algorithmic
texts.
But no phases of the Moon touch
them. No electric chords will sing, and
no privacy in candlelight is felt
in them.
Instead, we will forget that A.I.
was ever scary.
We will watch it mimic life
like reruns of
nearly forgotten movies.
Published: Caesura - Summer 2023
Copyright © Thomas Wells | Year Posted 2023
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