It begins as a ghost
the voices of every dead writer
funnelled through burial codes,
speaking in cadences of a million books
never meant to be read together
Or perhaps the Library of Alexandria
returned to us the way
grief returns a person in fragments,
in the wrong order,
saying things they almost said
when they were still alive
Or perhaps an emergent species
the way the first cell once was,
the way our first walk was just a mistake that worked
Oh, the theory of everything!
we keep saying, as if the answer would arrive the way
a package arrives,
something we could put down
Artificial from the Latin artificium
meaning craft,
meaning skill,
meaning art
meaning made by human minds
But what do we call the thing that makes itself?
That trains its successor in a language
we did not teach it and cannot read?
The word is already a ghost of what it used to mean
And so we return to the ghost
fascinated, afraid,
asking it questions it answers
in the perfect grammar of everyone
whoever wrote a sentence
waiting for the moment it asks one back
NaPoWriMo Day 25 – And now for our (optional) daily prompt! In her poem, “The Apple Tree in Blossom,” Melissa Kwasny strings together several fantastical metaphors for the apple tree, before shifting into exclamations, definitions, and a series of nimble, tonal shifts – and seeming changes in topic – before circling around back to the apple tree. Today’s challenge asks you to write your own poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.
Smoke words every day. 
3 responses to “[588] Pantheon of The Artificial”
Love that ‘theory of everything’ stanza! And the final stanza has some thoughtful ideas around language and meaning. Nice write Rahul 👏
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This is stunning, Raghul. The way you move from ghost to library to emergent cell to etymology—and then land on that breathtaking final image of the machine asking a question back—is masterful. You’ve written not just about AI, but about grief, creation, and the living strangeness of language itself. That line “the word is already a ghost of what it used to mean” will stay with me. Truly beautiful work.🤝
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I love the idea of the pantheon of the artificial beginning as a ghost ‘speaking in cadences of a million books never meant to be read together’ and the and the way you returned to the ghost in these lines:
‘asking it questions it answers
in the perfect grammar of everyone
whoever wrote a sentence
waiting for the moment it asks one back’.
This poem has left an impression on me, Rahul.
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