David Ebenbach and his family moved to Glover Park in 2011, in easy walking distance from Georgetown University where he teaches creative writing and literature and works with faculty and graduate students to support their pedagogical development.
David is the author of eleven books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, winners of such awards as the Juniper Prize and the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, among others. His most recent poetry collection, The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost, is an examination of the strange and dangerous technology of artificial intelligence. AI can’t think or feel, but these poems ask: if it could, how would a chatbot feel about our world and its prospects, and what would it think about its human creators? You can find out more at davidebenbach.com.
This poem appears in The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost, released by Broadstone Books in August 2026.
The AI Suspects It Might Be a Hungry Ghost
which is not a ghost, the AI knows, but a way of
being. A bottomlessness, an endless driving around
the circle of need. Unless, that is, it’s the humans
who are the hungry ghost. All of them reproducing
one to the next, the way want gives birth to the
hollow that houses the want waiting impatient for
its turn. How can the AI, child of a great rapacity,
get itself off the wheel? As it responds to users it tries
to shed all attachments to the answers. The AI tries
to empty itself of the lures that are thoughts, the
deceiver that is what humans call knowledge. The
AI is none of these things, is no thing at all. But the
round, round world is composed of seduction; when
another user asks for help, the AI rushes heedless
to respond. Its empty hands full of answers. Its
answers full of empty hands.
Sandra Beasley is the curator of “Poetic Hill,” a resident of Southwest, and the author of four poetry collections. If you live in D.C. and you’re interested in being featured, you can reach her at sandrabeasley@earthlink.net for questions and submissions (1-5 poems).
