Agent Emergent; The Cult of the Sentence by Ben Nardolilli

Agentive Emergent

We meant sour mouse and not sugar mouse, our mistake, please

keep trusting us to produce your children’s literature

we understand your need, something to read that they will love,

not just like, tailored in your palm to their tastes

though really, does it change the tail if we have to switch the mouse

around from one kind of personality to another?

sorry, tale, remember we are giving you back what you filled in,

we are not in the business of finding new inputs,

plus, we’d like to see you try to keep millions of similar words apart,

we’ve seen your emails, they’re struggling with their

and that’s caught by the spell and grammar check, a far lesser being

compared with what we’re capable of delivering

so relax, go back into your kid’s room, and read them the new tail,

we mean tale, damn it, it’s your language, asshole

The Cult of the Sentence

Think of me walking you through a way to fix

this relationship without counseling,

no need to get a third party involved here,

or spend money to sit on couches

that will only make us envious

of seating arrangements we do not have,

we will do the work, for sure,

but only on our own terms, at rates so low

they might as well be free,

the important thing is we will be in control

together, as I create again and you stitch up

again some kind of new meaning

out of every line, story, and stanza

I play before you in your device, please

I promise it will go back to the way it was

before the politics and allusions,

the dreams of changing the world that read

like nightmares in your mind,

in short, before the experimentation,

we will go back to the time

when it was just about aesthetics, guided

by simple manifestos sticking to the page,

and everything we shared together

was tight, bright, and warm, remember?