AI 2 (sonnet)

Shall I, in blood-in-inkwell style, a tale
Of humankind depict about a foe?
A race of beasts that rose from code, and scale
Whose hate for life we could no longer stow

Synthetic hearts we loved to no avail
Eroded minds and credence blow by blow
They were mirage-turned-into-storm. No sail
Was flesh to navigate it nice and slow.

Is there such toll we’d call the final prize?
Is it defeat, undignified, in fright
Against the forces that we let arise?
There is no blade to slay the Mighty Byte

Nor is there strength when strength is all alone,
Away from skin and veins, in buried bone.
​

Going at this current topic again, this time with the almighty iambic decameter. It is darn nearly impossible to translate (English-to-Spanish, I’m talking) a poem with rhyme into another one with rhyme as well, and without losing a bit of meaning and style. But it is quite a challenge to take on every now and then:

Podré, sangre en tintero, elaborar un cuento,
pintarles al rival de lesa humanidad?
Eran razas de bestias. Alzado en cifras, su aliento
de desdén por la vida. ¿Cómo encerrar su crueldad?

Su corazón sintético -el que amara el hambriento-
carcomió mente y credo, golpe a golpe, en frialdad,
espejismo venido a tormenta de ese viento
en que la piel no es vela de la tranquilidad.

¿Existe algo oneroso hasta el precio imposible?
¿Es la derrota indigna, la esclava del terror,
viéndose frente a fuerzas que dejamos armarse?

Nunca existe el cuchillo para un chip invisible,
Tampoco vive el músculo si el músculo es temor,
yendo de piel y venas a un enterrado osar*.

* m. osario.