At last Tuesday’s Twitter poetry party, all poetic prompts were from Robert Pinsky’s Death and the Powers. Fourteen of us gathered together on Twitter (and at the “well” at TweetSpeak Poetry) and rhapsodized about – robots, among other things.

Here are the first two of the poems devloped from the jam.

Robotics in Verse

By @lorrie58, @togetherforgood, @llbarkat, @goung9751, @mdgoodyear, @PoemsPrayers, @lauraboggess, @jezamama, @duane_scott, @CherylSmith999, @SandraHeskaKing,@LoveLifeLitGod, @mattpriour, and @RLPreacher; edited by gyoung9751.

Looks Like We’ve Got Robots

Looks like we’ve got robots.
Ooh, robots. Maybe I should get
my boys down here to help me out.
Ground control to robot.
Ground control to robot.

Robots dust cobwebs before the
party; eat the popcorn. I don’t
want to be a robot all automated,
controlled with a switch, dancing
metallic dances metallic sheen of
metal, whirring of gears, gears
grinding slowly into motion.
Maybe I can remember how to do
this thin.

Command me
like your favorite robot;
I might work for roses
if you dance.
But if you dance, would that
be a ritual performance for
command or a command
performance for a ritual?

Failure is not an Option

The teaspoon tray was assembled by
Command, the only thing it could do.
Command is struggling today.
Switching to manual override.

The system, the system has failed yet again.
Even if failure is not an option,
it is still a metallic echo, not a repeat, an echo.
thundering gray against blue metal.

The command is repeating itself.
Danger, Will Robinson.
Command has left us in
robotic arrears
I, Robot, said Asimov;
I, Isaac, said the robot.

When is data a dream; when do bits
become literature?
I was always a fan of Data on StarTrek
with his greenish skin and longing to
be human. Comprehension begins
when the echo ends.

How shall I show/that I am frightened?
Comprehend to grab with the hand,
flesh or metal or the echo, the order, the
other wires like flowers growing behind
my electronic sets. Comprehension is not
understanding; an echo is not a big bang

I do not understand;
I just do not understand.