Rae Armantrout: Four New Poems

      TRUE NORTH

  

Reindeer pull a sleigh

(through early spring thaw)

on the roof

of the True North

nail salon

   *

 Signed turn-out

where tourists take snapshots

of the pipeline, elevated

on small plinths,

amid scattered birch

  

     *

 Aurora's green sky

gives the mind

what it thinks

it wants: a different

nature, a new world

  

     *

 And notes

of a wind chime --

dissonant, rounded --

Nabokov's "nymphets"

fleeting in place

  

             POSE

So the problem we pose

is how to create an intelligent

                                                      agent

and then prevent it

from destroying this world?

     *

 "Content monitoring

that required the AI's

intentional states

to be transparent

might not be feasible

for all architectures."

  

     *

 A long green straw

stuck in the ground

with two ears (leaves)

protruding

on either side

at intervals

     *

 What we meant

by "listening stations"

and when we began

to mean this.

  

     *

 Perhaps its goal would be

to have "thoughts"

pass through its "head"

so it could record them.

  

     *

"Preparedness is critical."

"Kiss all hope goodbye."

"A friend wants you to like it."

       LIKE

  

Small white lights

twined around white

dead sticks

under a glass dome

flash -

like getting an idea

was the idea.

  

     *

 Like thinking

I want to fall asleep,

each night coming so soon

after the last,

and hosting a string

of tedious dreams

like trying to get back

to my office

     *

 I head

back in

to clear it

                     out,

my head

  

     PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

    1

What are your interests?

I'm interested in the way

interest

creates finitude.

  

     *

 Differently translated,

"in choosing itself,

existing being

closes a circuit."

  

     *

 Now every sixteen seconds,

the engine will pass the brakeman

with his arm always raised

beside the empty station.

    2

What do you want to do?

All impulses come

from the gods,

as we know,

and lead god knows where,

though each hero

has her own set

of god-given epithets,

"Insta-bright"

and

"All-dimming"