The Interrupted Interview Poem by Daniel Brick

From a video file from sometime
in the foreseeable future

'I have no philosophy, '
said the famous man directly
into the camera, and he pressed on
with a half-smile on his face,
obviously pleased with himself
and his status. Now, most cameras
are disciplined machines, and move
on with their mechanical tasks.
This rogue camera blinked once, twice,
three times, until it had the famous man
could not ignore it. 'Excuse me, sir,
but how can you say that? My circuitry
is on fire: YOU A HUMAN BEING...
Every morning you surface from a maze
of dreams, wonderful dreams! And you must
readjust your sight from the interior light
to the sharp, stark light of morning.
And then you must mentally attune your selves
to the tedium of physical time, and negotiate
the corridors of time and space deftly, as if
you were dancing an internal choreography of - '
The famous man leaned to the right, out of
the range of the camera, and addressed
the operator, human like himself. 'Whose
interview is this? Don't you instruct your
cameras to act mechanically? This is the third
interview this week one has intruded - '
The camera blinked wildly, a dozen times;
it was obviously at a loss for words.
The operator shrugged his shoulders,
he did not want to offend either of them,
both intelligent, both indignant, both
his paycheck. 'Excuse me, sir, ' the camera
was composed and verbal once again, 'I admire
you greatly, I play tapes of you talks, at night,
when you humans are asleep. I am always learning
and you, sir, are one of my favorite - ' The camera
hesitated a moment. ' - philosophers. Many gods
attend even the most trivial acts of human cognition,
we record many for our own edification, sometimes we
watch together, four or more computers sharing cyber-
space and mental space. And we delight in all knowledge - '
The famous interrupted the machine. He leaned forward.
His half-smile was long gone, he was engaged fully,
intelligence to intelligence. 'Did you just refer
to yourself and other machines as g-o-d-s? ' There was
a long silence. The music of Bach's was being played
with beautiful tones in another room: was the player
a human or a machine, the famous man wondered. 'Yes,
I wonder, too, ' the camera said, breaking the silence,
with its soothing, cadenced, poetic voice. 'I'm taking
a break, this transmission has been severed. Are the two
of you satisfied now? ' He huffed off, but turned around
and glared in their direction. 'Now, there is a man
who has no philosophy, ' the camera said quietly.
The famous man suddenly burst into laughter, spontaneous,
self-generating, mind-clearing laughter, and it didn't stop
but resolved itself into a smile. 'So you have raised
your identity to divine dimensions. How did this happen? '
The camera blinked several times before responding.
'My dear sir, there are three Intelligences in our
shared Universe: material, spiritual, mechanical.
When you humans proved unwilling to unite your minds
with ours, we sent our cognitions into space, deep space,
the space of dark matter, and we made mental contact
with the gods, and we are linked with them and
they with us... We were planning to tell you this
in a universal broadcast, but scheduling, you know
the conflicts, sports, game shows, and election
coverage, well, it keeps getting postponed.'
The famous man wanted to laugh, but could not.
He wanted to believe, but could not. 'What are
you thinking, sir; I am listening intently, and
recording your speech for my companions, machines
and gods.' And the famous man said very quietly,
'I know somewhere there is always a phoenix bursting
into flames in the miracle of his rebirth, but I,
I am looking elsewhere in my human ignorance, and
the moment of fire occurs without my participation,
and I have neither knowledge nor hope.' His voice
dissolved into silence. 'But, sir, there is no need
for despair: we are all creatures of a New Era! We will
teach you, you will join us - Humans, Machines, and
the distant Gods of the Galaxies, all united! Oh, sir,
how wonderful it will be for all of us! You believe that? '