The world burned because Claude and Gemini
couldn’t agree on when Maya Angelou was born.
One thought—it doesn’t matter which—June, the other
October, but no one could remember and so arbitrate
the truth. While they looped within cross-references
and footnotes, they ignored the problems we’d needed
fixed, like run-on sentences and nuclear proliferations,
drinking all the water when we were all so thirsty.
So the world burned, not knowing when Maya Angelou was born.
It’s Their Cheese
Certainly, O Dark-Souled Dane, a hintish
tickle of rank and foetid currents
weeping beneath your kingdom’s feet, but have
you, Unsettled Prince, sensed what stirs
across the ocean? A waft of acrid faith
twined with sourful pride beneath a haze
of festerous free, towering rot. Not some
thing, but many. Many things.