Featured in
- Published 20230801
- ISBN: 978-1-922212-86-3
- Extent: 200pp
- Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
Glory to God for long weekends,
for lattes served by obsequious baristas,
sunnied eggs and bacon with the crispy ends,
for an empty park in front of the cinemas.
To she which gives us rain on shaggy lawns,
all glory given, by which we fail to set
the alarm, through sports drop-offs at dawn,
for hungover Saturdays, Fridays without regret.
Glory, glory to unexpected football
games telecast on free-to-air, for heirs
who suddenly decide to wash the car, for all
enlightenments filling each sudoku’s squares.
For golf, for ambling promenades, we praise
Her who gave weekends to punctuate our days.
Share article
More from author
The future
PoetryFor a moment he was given his future: a prophetic pulse racing to the horizon of his life and washing it stark and certain, the glacier of...
More from this edition
Hump day
Fiction‘Well, I’m sure all your questions will be answered very soon. Genius Inc. is holding a press conference at 3 pm,’ Sam says. ‘The Prime Minister will be there too, since the government is partly funding them now, after their cancer discovery. It’s serious, Prue. Try to have an open mind, alright? Keep your phone close. I’ll call you straight after.’ ‘Sure,’ she yells after him, ‘if we survive it.’
The defence
Non-fictionThe history of computer science is bound up with the game of chess, whose innate complexity and clearly defined rules make it the ideal proving ground for artificial intelligence. And yet the game not only survived the defeat of Garry Kasparov in 1997 by IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue, but also seemed to flourish in its wake. According to International Chess Federation figures, more people are playing the game than ever before, and not merely over the internet. Now, as a new generation of AIs aces the Turing test – according to which a machine may be deemed intelligent if the human interacting with it can’t tell if it is a machine or not – it might be worth taking a closer look at chess as a social and creative phenomenon that speaks to the limits of ‘smart’ machines.
Etc.
FictionTogether we were drawn mechanically across the road, boredom/fate reeling us in. The lawn sprawled over the grey-brick kerb. The house was painted green. Sellotaped to the windows were rows of pressed aster. The feeling of something too large to explain was heavy in the air. The door squeaked, swinging open, the main door ajar behind it, and through the gap we glimpsed a white hallway, a pile of discarded shoes on one side.
