Deep Blue

You may beat me at chess
But can you write a poem?
Can you stare into the sun’s eye


Until you see cantaloupe?
Or rock the sailboat of the moon
Adrift in a diamond sea of stars?






I think I hear you say
(Binarily in bits and bytes)
That it is so passé,


So bloody nineteenth century,


So Keatsian to scatter fruit and jewels


Like cosmic litter from a lichened


Cornucopia of clichés,


Romantic and redundant metaphors.






Agreed, my artificial friend.


But it is harder than you think
(If indeed you do think) to compose


The way things are
And the ideas within them
And what you feel


In words direct as sunlight,


Subtle as moonbeams
And real as seeds and stones.


You will always win at chess, my friend.
And today I will write a different kind of poem,
Deeper than the deepest blue you will ever know.

(Deep Blue was the chess-playing computer which beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a match in 1997.)