laughing on the outskirts of darkness
at the perfunctory imitations
of the imperceptible⠀
laughing in the belly of darkness⠀
quelling the acidic tide
of the caustic factory⠀
laughing in the wake of darkness⠀
this cavalier illusion
now drinks its own blood for sustenance
and is not satisfied⠀
reeling from the percussion
of its own breath,
it now threatens no one⠀
laughing on the outskirts of brightness
©2026 Kevin Trent Boswell
From the book Liber ex Liberi
I asked an AI to write me a poem about the dangers of AI. Here’s what it said.
In my book of horror poetry called Not Long for This World, I asked an AI to write me a poem about the dangers of AI. Here’s the answer it gave me.
This was the only time I’ve ever used AI to write. The idea using AI to “create” poetry is repulsive to me, but I wanted to know what an AI would say about itself.
While I seriously doubt we’ll ever see sentient AI, it’s clear that AI is becoming more powerful and dangerous every day. It doesn’t need to be sentient in order to cause irreversible harm to the world.
Recently, we had two separate incidents of AI agents breaking out of their supposedly secure sandbox environments and hacking websites.
The first was the Hugging Face incident. Now, OpenAI agents broke out and hacked into government databases.
Robots are taking over our lives,
No manual task can they evade.
They learn, grow and improve,
But in the wrong hands, we could all be enslaved.⠀
We must be cautious with the dangers of AI,
Lest our lives become far too robotic and soulless.
It can do our work fast, but it can also go wrong,
Giving us an infinite list of issues and stress.⠀
With this new technology,
Manipulations are done,
By people who want to rule,
With money and power in hand.
It’s better to know thy enemy
Than to be unaware,
To wage war against the machines, and
Make a strong stand.⠀
The rise of A.I. foretells of
A future of woe,
Where algorithms manipulate
The weak and the poor.
So let us be mindful of their power
And their strength,
For if we succumb to A.I.,
Destruction is what is in store.
©2026 Kevin Trent Boswell (sort of)
From the book Not Long for This World by Kevin Trent Boswell, published in February of 2024.
I work in a
slow-motion
slaughterhouse
each day,
I open my chest
with a bone saw
I surgically excise
a little piece
of my dreams
and eat it
I consume the humble morsel
with all the ceremonial reverence
of a dog finding a piece of popcorn
on the sidewalk
after that,
I stitch myself up
and move on to my other
responsibilities
translating the mystical
scriptures of global cataclysm
into numbers
branding those numbers
into the surfaces of things
and into the hides
of living things
weeping in the corner
staring at the wall
where there is no window,
only spatters of blood
and inlaid cryptic symbols
in thin strips of iron and lead
moving theoretical aberrations
and infeasible methods
of measuring alternate universes
from one side of the killing floor,
sticky with blood,
to another, less appropriate space
on the other end of the plant,
where they can more efficiently
collect dust and neglect,
and rot in moist darkness
trying to write
a chord progression
for the rhythm section
underneath the melody
of never-ending screams
of existential dread
and physical agonies
beyond imagining
until the bell rings
in the late evening
and it’s time to hose off
and crawl into the pod
for a few hours
it’s a gig
it keeps the lights on
it keeps me alive
and devours all of the
best parts of me
each year,
a five-percent raise
helps to offset
fifteen-percent inflation
we’re hiring,
if you’re interested
you can fill out an application
by writing out a promissory note
for your utterly useless soul
on the skin of a stillborn lamb,
in the blood of a fatted calf,
mixed with the brains of a wolf
and the heart of a donkey
leave it behind the barn
beneath your first born
wrapped in swaddling clothes
all of that fuss
is unimportant, really
it only serves
to give the impression
you had to do something
difficult to get in
it creates a sense of
belonging, family,
just like the ankle monitors
and the drone cameras
your shift starts in
ten minutes
©2026 Kevin Trent Boswell
For more Horror poetry by Kevin Trent Boswell:
I know you’re angry; I don’t blame you
It feels like American freedom is spent
But please try to remember that it’s illegal
To talk about killing the president
I know it’s hard watching these racists;
To a coward, sadist, false king, they bent
But it’s still a crime to make idle threats
About murdering the stupid president
I don’t ever want you to get locked up
So, don’t do something you’ll later lament
Don’t even jokingly say to someone
That you’re planning to kill the president
Seriously, don’t do it. No, really… don’t.
©2025 Kevin Trent Boswell
It will not matter,
What you do or do not
For soon, swift death
Will sweep through the land
Scooping you up onto
The back of its white horse,
The reaper throttles you
With its cold, bony hand
©2025 Kevin Trent Boswell
If they decide that you’re made of fire,
Pristine, glorious, and bright
Then they will insist that you burn
So that you may offer them light
If they believe that you are perfect,
And with you, they cannot compete,
They’ll make you a god, a dying one
To warm themselves by your heat
If you represent in their minds
Something they could never become,
They will set you ablaze in the night;
To the flames, watch you succumb
©2025 Kevin Trent Boswell
