Our Founder
By Samatar Elmi
Who art in Cali.
Programmer by trade.
Thy start-up come,
thy will become
an FTSE 500.
Give us this day our dividends
in cash and fixed stock options
as we outperform all coders against us.
And lead us all into C-suite
but deliver us from lawsuits.
For thine is the valley.
Transistors and diodes.
Forever and ever.
AI.
Notes:
This poem is part of the folio “Freed Verse: A Reckoning of Black British Poets.” Read the rest of the folio in the September 2025 issue.
Source: Poetry (September 2025)