IV.

The poet wore a smile, broad, smug and warm,
Took praise from everyone who offered it.
He thought: “I am a sage of my art form!
And now I’ll just sit back and take credit.”
He burst into his office in this mood,
The grin still wide upon his haughty face,
To find two people talking there – how rude!
Who let them into here in the first place?
But then he saw one of them was his boss,
And – unlike his – her face was grim and stern.
She said: “Our client here suffered a loss,
And I thought you might address his concern.”
The man held out a page: “What’s your reaction
To your AI’s last financial transaction?”

The world is treasure.
The bark falls from the tree and
is soon collected.

Bright points of pure light
become the endless digits
that no hand can grasp.

The numbers attach.
To what? The mountains graph the
fall of hollow stones.

The old invention
now controls you. Irony:
creation's reward.

Balance grows, but not
contentment from good fortune.
Then: silence alone.

The poet gave the paper back. “It’s haiku,”
He pointed out. “And some of it’s quite Zen.”
“We’re well aware of that,” his boss snapped. “Thank you.
The hope is that it won’t happen again.”
The poet turned to the financier,
“It’s true, our AI is quite…lyrical.”
“Indeed,” the banker said. “It would appear
It bends towards the philosophical.
Its focus should be on profit and loss.”
“I completely agree,” the poet winced,
Searching for understanding from his boss
Whose narrowed eyes looked highly unconvinced.
“We’ll put it right,” she reassured the banker,
Who offered out his hand, as if to thank her.