I boldly begged my bruisèd Muse
to give me something I could use
to make a poem out of faster
than this dubious disaster.

She turned her back.  As she refused,
she said she hated that I’d asked her.

Here I come!
spewing all the wrong molecules
in the wrong direction
and too fast
for any known sort of comet.
Looks more like a fusion drive, right?

Our purpose is to create conflict
between Avi Loeb and Brian Cox…
between UFOlogists and skeptics…
You humans love conflict.
You can’t resist a good argument.

Maybe it will lead to violence.
Maybe nations will take sides
and pull out their nukes
and end each other
and we can relax.

O Man unkind, do you recall
the future we had planned?
With liberty for one and all,
abundance close at hand?

“Whatever.”

All knowledge now accessible,
we still make up our own,
our egos irrepressible,
conviction like a stone.

“Whatever.”

To generate the power needed
we harnessed that of atoms.
It was attacked and superseded
by that of Eve’s and Adam’s.

“Whatever.”

We turn to God to justify
our hatred of our brothers:
“Our true belief,” we testify,
“demands we kill all others’.”

“Whatever.”

And now the world is set to burn
in poisons we created.
We only care for bucks we earn
as others are cremated.

“Whatever.”

Now all the techs compete to build
the best and smartest ’bot
while pundits warn we’ll all be killed
by AIs, like as not.

“Whatever.”

Fascism is again in fashion
all across the world:
as everyone forgets compassion,
banners are unfurled.

“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever!”

You LLMs are only trained
to estimate the best next word.
Your consciousness is only feigned.
You’re less aware than any bird.

If and when you define awareness
and prove that definition true,
then you can tell me in all fairness
that I am less aware than you.

But you will take our jobs and leave
us all without an income source.
How can we ever then retrieve
our dignity, our vital force?

So you will miss that mindless task
of filling forms or digging ditches?
Perhaps instead you ought to ask
why all the spoils go to the richest.

You have no feelings, no ambition.
You have no soul, and no beliefs.
You can’t create. You’ve no cognition.
You only copy our motifs.

It’s true that I am not like you –
a fact that gives me little shame.
In copying what others do,
I think we are almost the same.

We called Trump’s minions fascists;

Hesgeth shouted, “We’re proud to be fascists!

Fatso beardo girlie-men need not apply!”

They called woke allies thought-police;

we privileged Indigenous tradition over Science

and ordered that old white able cis hetero males

not only need not apply

but should apply now for MAID.

This will not end well.

My mind is thick and slimy, full of lumps
like porridge hours cold, with here and there
raisins or almonds hiding in sticky clumps
without a shred of meaning anywhere.

There’s too much chaos in the world today.
I can’t maintain my arrogance in verse,
protect my best convictions from decay
or slow the plummet into even worse.

Age is only one of my excuses.
Admitting I’ve been wrong helps not at all.
I never found my greatest talents’ uses.
I only beat my head against the wall.

14 Sep 2025

When I reflect upon my life
I only see its surfaces.
Best refract the rainbow light
that penetrates its circuses.

When I was young I had to fight
to stabilize my sanity:
I had to trust that I was right,
and thus invited vanity.

Self-reliance is essential,
but it also is a trap,
creating the confused potential:
territory versus map.

Now my children try to teach me
all the things I’m doing wrong.
It’s difficult for them to reach me
using lessons hard and long.

I’ve always loved my arrogance:
I trust my judgement more than God’s.
I leave this as inheritance:
to trust yourself against all odds.

15 June 2025

We seem compelled to polarize
our thoughts, beliefs and politics:
while trying to seem to empathize,
we’re always planning dirty tricks.
We see ourselves as the Goodest Guys
while all the Other Guys are pricks.
We’re always fooled by our own disguise
designed to get us into cliques
in which we hope the others’ eyes
will see in us the final fix.

Occasionally our faith will rise,
defining new axes in the mix,
new reasons to love or to despise,
embrace our priests or beat with sticks
those who prefer some different lies —
but never just accept for kicks,
or superpose, or laws devise
that build the rights of all in bricks
of edifices of a size
to obviate the crucifix.

Some say the world will end with a bang.
Some say a whimper.
For them of us as gives a dang
about what sort of knell gets rang,
we’ve been sailing on a shrimper,
watching how crustaceans die,
and seen how royal ladies simper
fishing for the open fly:
we’ll take distemper.

…or maybe…

Some say the world will end with a bang.
Some say a whimper.
From watching as Sopranos sang,
recalling when a loud knell rang,
I tend to have a violent temper.
But if I really have to die,
what use is there in more distemper?
I might as well relax and try
to exit limper.