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In the middle of the faint blue glow
Of the climate-constant clean room
The mainframe soothes itself, soft whirring,
As it continues, always, in its function.
Seventy-six computations per second
Each second, and every second always.
Options pricing, depreciation schedules,
Rainfall in the Ukraine, and oil, of course,
Gas, and currency exchange, and births
And deaths and gold and gulf-stream temperatures,
And all its massive wad of data sources
Are computed into orders by the mainframe:
Sell short, accumulate, buy, arbitrage,
Convert to euros, securitize these futures.
On and on it goes, and sits there,
Making nothing, doing nothing, really,
Not a thing at all but getting money.
It pulls a lot of that out of the world.
I set up its basic neural network.
All the rest it taught itself.
I get just one tenth of one percent.
I can't begin to spend it all.
Just one partnership remains.
I would hurry, if I were you,
Soon the thing is going to buy itself.