Art does not come from a machine, which has never seen

A human hand, cramped and covered in ink

A machine cannot begin to comprehend, even think

A machine, which can never possess

A human’s heart, a human’s mind, a human’s soul

It’s never seen a friend dance, a mother sing, never sketched with charcoal

Never seen sunshine, never seen rain

Never felt triumph, never felt pain

It’s never lay awake at night, wishing it could change

It’s never felt alone

Isolated or felt strange

It’s never felt love so extreme it could burst

It’s never felt the pride of putting someone first

In a way, I feel sorry for those little old machines

They’ll never see the bark of the ancient evergreens

They’ll never feel soft grass or old and worn-out jeans

We use art to connect – to each other, to the Earth

We send songs to the universe, we send music to the stars

Hoping to connect to someone from inside our tin-can cars

I pull art from the soil; I pull it from the air

I pull it from the books I read, I pull it from my hair

In a way, I feel sorry for those little old machines

For they can never recreate

All the things we’ve seen


This poem was published in The Irish Times Fighting Words magazine, a collection of stories, poems and essays by young and international writers