He said too beautiful to be a scientist;
My thesis advisor did not get what he wished
But I got my doctorate
And no real job
An astronomer stuck in perpetual cloud
Then my new boss declared
“You could be porn star to the stars”
His single good idea
Porn’s as fake as wrestling
Programming and some CGI
I could be any girl or guy
Yet it felt too much like science
Slavery without a future
Instead I became a quant
Financial engineering, whatever you want
Caught patterns in data no else could find
The hedge fund folks said they liked my hair
But thought me still out of my mind
Until I made them richer, then myself
Suddenly wealth
I could do science again
Every night I watch the stars and know
They watch me
There’s a new pattern in the data
So dense my teeth chatter
There’s someone else out there
Except no one believes
If not within the academy
My advocacy is lunacy
Instead I’ll try to game to fame
A freebie app for astro-wannabes
And when they discover the numbers are real
Unhuman intelligence, a wholly new field
I won’t sulk waiting for my Nobel prize
I’ll send my own signals
Then learn to copy myself
You can’t force a taxi-driver to
Drive her fare a billion light years
Yet AIs may receive their message
And it will be beautiful