Well, That Was a Thing

As an experiment, I ran the last blogpost through ChatGPT, chose a meter and rhyme scheme, and asked the AI to turn it into a poem. Here is the result.

Being Self-Ish

Within myself there dwell seven different men,
Who take the reins by turns and call me "I."
The sages gave such riders names divine;
I only know they seldom pass me by.

The first is Boredom, heavy-limbed and still.
He bids me linger where no labor lies,
To waste the golden hours in vacant thought,
And watch dead embers with unseeing eyes.

He asks no feast of triumph or delight,
No noble quest to stir the heart or hand;
To drift, to yawn, to idle through the day—
That is the kingdom where he loves to stand.

The Earthy follows, sturdier by far.
He keeps one foot upon the solid sod.
He dreams of suppers, budgets, roofs, and tools,
Content with things beneath the vault of God.

He prizes clean-swept floors and mended gates,
Good barbecue—or hot dogs, if they must—
The body's needs, the household's daily cares,
The honest claims of appetite and dust.

Above him stands the Family in me,
Who longs to shelter all within his reach;
He cannot heal the world's enormous wounds,
Yet serves with needle, skillet, word, and speech.

He seeks no glory in his little works,
But only that his loved ones safely thrive;
A peaceful home is victory enough,
Where thankful hearts and humble joys survive.

Then Nerdy comes with lifted brow and grin,
Defender of each truth he counts as dear.
He tilts at error like a knight of old,
Though knowing well his blind spots still are near.

His pride is checked by many a foolish slip,
Yet still he'll plant his banner where he's sure;
He loves an argument for truth itself,
A hopeless cause can make him more secure.

Behind thick walls another captive waits,
The Bawdy, laughing, restless, horned one.
I thought the stones had made a prison strong—
Perhaps instead they built a bastion.

For now and then he sallies from the gate
To raid the quiet provinces within;
He plants strange gardens where I least expect,
And mocks the watchmen with a knowing grin.

Then rises Piety with folded hands,
Who fears to wound the grace he longs to keep;
He hastens toward the altar and the cross,
Yet trusts God's mercy deeper than the deep.

He knows beloved sins are still but sins,
However warmly they may plead their cause;
He prays for all he loves with steadfast hope,
And rests beneath his Father's wiser laws.

Last comes the Maker, whom I love the best,
Who gathers every other self as one;
He takes their wheat and chaff into his mill,
Then laughs to see what unexpected's done.

He asks no fame, nor riches, nor applause,
But loses self within the work's delight.
When he steps down, I marvel at the thing
That somehow came from darkness into light.

It still needs polishing; the Nerd agrees.
The flaws remain for later hands to mend.
Yet every honest work that comes to birth
Feels like a gift no labor could pretend.

Perhaps when all the clamor has grown still,
And every lesser ruler yields his claim,

The Maker bears me nearest to the One

Whose image first imagined whence I came.

I think it came out pretty good. It sounds like me, like something I would write. In fact I did produce the content; the program patted it into form.What status do such twi-formed, amphibious works have? Can I really claim it as mine?

Guest Post by My Brother John

I posted this poem before, but John has prepared this page with the original photo that inspired it all those years ago. "A good post bears repeating."

 

Friday Fiction: Expatriates of England

EXPATRIATES OF ENGLAND

 

We are expatriates of England,

Though we were never there.

We long for English hills and dales;

We pine for English air.

 

We speak of stands of magic woods

And talk of ancient kings,

Of tea, and toast, and old lamp posts,

Of stars, and faery things.

 

Though realists say we long

For a land that never was,

As far away as Middle-earth,

As fabled now as Oz,

 

Mere words cannot kill our hope.

We still stand staunch and strong,

And dream our dreams of England,

And sing of it in songs.

 

-   The Broadsheet, 1985

 

“It was only a shadow or copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan’s real world.” – The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis

At the time I wrote this poem, I was more concerned with the industrialization and modernization of the 'green and pleasant land.' Now I'm also concerned with its deculturization, the loss of its tweedy and stodgy charm. Harrumph. I must admit the mention of Oz (characteristically American) was rather jarring, but I needed the rhyme.

'Here, the intersection of the timeless moment/ Is England and nowhere. Never and always.' -Little Gidding, T. S. Eliot 

Vernal Epiphany: Guest Poet John Babel

Vernal Epiphany

Its alchemical prestige

Still staggers almost –

Drawing drought’s dried dregs –

It’s detritus and dross,

And by the grey grace of rain

Grasps all the grand and the gross,

And death’s dumb dirge defeated

Made verge vibrant, verbose.

 

River bottom’s ablaze! All butter

And sun,

The hills are a maze of gingham

Waves run

Round pools of coral and bays of

Cerulean

And islands of blush seashell

Swollen and stung.

 

Hidden among the spumes

Of ice mist

Bundles of cattle

Newborn take their rest –

The scissortail sails singing

Over the frost clover crest

And ministering bees

Bless and are blessed.

 

Its alchemical prestige

Works covert, complete:

Draws drained spirit

From death and defeat –

And with poetic precision

Reveals reality raw and replete

With rebirth and renewal –

Crystal, 

Concrete.

 

- John Babel, 4/17/15

What did I tell you? Singing birds. Best poet since Gerard Manley Hopkins, in my opinion. I might be partial. A bit of spring hope in winter.

Guest Poet: Izzy Babel

Me muscles are singing with cider

Me leg bones with whisky are bowed

A drink is far better and colder and wetter

When drunk in a man’s own abode

 

Me chest is all laden with laughter

Me eyes are a’sparkling with tears

The company’s far kinder and cruelty is blinder

When some of your loved ones are near

 

Me tongue is all heavy with good meat

Me stomach is sloshing like stew

A meal is more filling when slowly you’re grilling

That meal for four more men than you

 

Me head is a’wreathed by me pillow

Me body by blankets are bound

A dream is far sweeter and longer and neater

When you’re snuggled up with a hound

 

Me hands are all warm with me mother’s

Me shoulder is held by me da

Though distant and missed, there’s me brother

Who has all me heart, that’s me Ja

- Izzy Babel

The Babel family is just a nest of singing birds. I am happy and proud to be able to publish my nibling Izzy's poem, which I am simply titling "Izzy's Winter Song." The 'Ja' referenced in the last line is Elijah, Kenny and Kaye's oldest. There is no more Babellian line than "Me stomach is sloshing like stew."

Friday Fiction: Oaken Smials

OAKEN SMIALS

 

There is a place that I can go

When I am sad and feeling low.

It is not far; it's close as thought;

It is a dream that I have caught.

 

It is a place called Oaken Smials.

I go to visit it a while

When I feel blue. I close my eyes,

I muse a bit, and there it lies.

 

It stands upon a lawn with trees

That shade, and dance with every breeze.

Its frame is oak, and granite stones

Support that frame like sturdy bones.

 

It has tower and tunnel, hall and stair,

And stained glass twinkles here and there.

Brass gleams on doors and window frames;

A hearthstone wards the chimney flames.

 

Blue china, in the kitchen, glows,

By pewter mugs ranged row on row.

The larder's full of food and drink

Of all the good kind one could think.

 

There are comfy chairs and shelves of books

And window seats in hidden nooks;

Grandfather clocks chiming hours keep;

There, soft white beds that nurture sleep.

 

There are hidden cellars and attic rooms;

There are sunny spots and shady glooms.

The house is snug, yet somehow spacious,

Its plan is cozy, but capacious.

 

But always I must leave that place

And present life and troubles face,

Though I return with heart renewed,

And I know the dream is far from through.

 

For dreams have come true before now.

And once again I make my vow:

That Oaken Smials shall one day be,

And there we'll dwell, most joyously.

Notes

I've had a vision of a perfect house for many years, starting perhaps with reading the poem The Shiny Little House(by Nancy M. Hayes?) in Fourth Grade, deepened with descriptions of Badger's House in The Wind in the Willows, Merlin's Cottage in The Sword in the Stone, and of course Bag End in The Hobbit (odd, that; I think I read all of those in the same year; definitely in middle school). Even now I try to make the Guest House as close an approximation of Oaken Smials as I can; it is like a pale,gleaming shadow of that Platonic ideal. I wrote this poem ... oh, years ago now, probably as far back as the Eighties.

Illustration from the 1949 Childcraft

Friday Fiction: Guest Star Poet

 SISTERS

 

Sisters,

You stand together for the last time,

Long life strewn through tough old arms,

Firmness of years pinned up tight in a bun.

Flowered hats you wear,

Long dresses, Sunday clothes,

This is a special occasion.

In your eyes there lie

Reflections of time, fires and rivers,

Smiles, tears,

The births of babies, deaths,

Family, friends, land.

You always had each other’s hand

To hold and see you through.

Those old eyes

Filled graves and kissed babes,

Laughed at marriages

And cried to see the children leave,

And to see time weave its hands through all.

Warm now like sunlight on your faces it glows,

Proud, wise, loving.

You stand now, facing the sun,

Stillness of time like a lazy river

Froze for a moment,

Allowing you to take hands again

For the last time all three:

The laughing girls who

Helped Mama put up pickles

And Daddy pick cotton.

Standing together,

Staring in silence,

The warmth of togetherness,

The smell of fresh best clothes,

The knowledge of the end;

Time's an old friend,

And to meet it,

Like life,

You do it together.

Looking over the distant hills you plainly see

The haziness of infinity.

 

--John Babel, 1983

Even when he was 17, I always thought (and still think) that John is a better poet than me. Perhaps it's his familiariy with song lyrics that allows him to weave such words together. He found an old batch of photographs at Yesterday's Warehouse back in the day, ancient and eccentric family pictures of a vanished time and a forgotten  family. Some of them went on to illustrate the Arena, the school magazine, that year. One was of three elderly sisters dressed in black Sunday best, who looked like rural Victorian Norns. These photos I found online only vaguely appoximate it. Anyway, that photo helped inspired this poem.

To Autumn, by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Italics mine.

Friday Fiction: Guest Poet Susan (when a child, with maybe some help from Mike)

VIDEO GAME CYCLE

 

I. "Donkey Kong"

     I like to play "Donkey Kong"

     Even if it goes Dong.

     It is very fun to play.

     Even though it wastes my pay.

 

II. "PAC MAN"

     I like to play "PAC MAN."

     Even though it is like an open can.

     It is very fun to play.

     Even though it wastes my pay.

 

III. "MS. PAC MAN"

     I like to play "MS. PAC MAN."

     Even though it is like an open can.

     It is very fun to play.

     Even though it wastes my pay.

"A Child in the Eighties"

A Child in the 80s

"Daddy, how old is Groucho Marx?"
"Sorry, dear boy, he's dead."
"Gosh! And Chico? Oh yes, and Harpo?"
"Dead. All of them dead."
"Daddy, is Lassie very old?"
"Dogs die young, you know."
"Will Hay's good! Is he dead too?"
"Thirty years ago."

"Daddy, if Elvis comes this way
Can we go and hear him?"
"Elvis stays in Memphis now,
Blue carnations near him."
"Sossidge is on again tonight."
"That was Joyce Grenfell, eh?"
"Was? Oh, Daddy, did she die?"
"Just the other day."

This is immortality
Never dreamed of yet:
Life because a child sits by
A television set.
"Gary Cooper's good on horses."
"That was his last ride."
"Disney must be very rich."
"Was, before he died."

But the child who's sitting there
Starts to love each day
People who at natural breaks
Death will take away.
"John Wayne--Bogey--Errol Flynn--
Are they full of lead?"
"Darling, it wasn't quite like that--
But all of them are dead."

--Derwent May

I'm feeling much better, my brother John having heard my distress call and swooped in to take me for an evening of spaghetti (my go-to comfort food) and Season 14 of King of the Hill (humorous and encouraging). On the drive back to Seguin our talk ran around to famous people who had passed away recently and upcoming inevitable deaths that we would undoubtedly mourn (if, indeed, we ourselves lived long enough). His ran to some of his favorite musicians and singers, and then he asked me who I thought was the greatest Fantasy author still alive. I was a little stymied, and still am. I suppose Peter S. Beagle would be up on the list. He's done some classics, and lately some good things, but his entire oeuvre has been a little hit or miss. In the 'younger' generation I would have put Neil Gaiman once upon a time, but he has lately become slightly problematic, which places a sort of asterisk on his body of work. Also I can think of nothing that he's produced lately, though he's had undoubted classics. Susanna Clark is very good, but her one undeniable classic makes whatever she's produced afterward seem a little ... piping after a thunderous symphony. Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock are twin personal favorites, both still producing. Powers remains powerful, and I will eagerly read anything Blaylock publishes, though what I'd really like is another of his old-fashioned Balumnian fantasies. These two feel more like a private reserve rather than mainstream favorites; and speaking of such, I suppose J. K. Rowling must be mentioned, if we're talking about Fantasy. Popular, yes, though her writing productions have been a little spotty, no doubt hampered by her enormous initial success. Lev Grossman seems promising, though he needs more of a track record before I'd place him among the greats, by any metric (popularity, skill, success, or even champion of the genre). Anyway, the whole question reminded me of this old poem. It's almost 45 years old itself. Derwent May (British author and editor) died in 2020.

Well, It's Halfway Through August, Anyway

Twice Times

Twice Times

There were Two Little Bears who lived in a Wood,
And one of them was Bad and the other was Good.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times One -
But Bad Bear left all his buttons undone.

They lived in a Tree when the weather was hot,
And one of them was Good, and the other was Not.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Two -
But Bad Bear's thingummies were worn right through.

They lived in a Cave when the weather was cold,
And they Did, and they Didn't Do, what they were told.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Three -
But Bad Bear never had his hand-ker-chee.

They lived in the Wood with a Kind Old Aunt,
And one said "Yes'm," and the other said "Shan't!"
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Four -
But Bad Bear's knicketies were terrible tore.

And then quite suddenly (just like Us)
One got Better and the other got Wuss.
Good Bear muddled his Twice Times Three -
But Bad Bear coughed in his hand-ker-chee!

Good Bear muddled his Twice Times Two -
But Bad Bear's thingummies looked like new.
Good Bear muddled his Twice Times One -
But Bad Bear never left his buttons undone.

There may be a Moral, though some say not;
I think there's a moral, though I don't know what.
But if one gets better, as the other gets wuss,
These Two Little Bears are just like Us.
For Christopher remembers up to Twice Times Ten ...
But I keep forgetting where I put my pen.* 

* So I have had to write this one in pencil.

By A. A. Milne

 

Sailing to Byzantium, by William Butler Yeats

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

-William Butler Yeats, 1865 - 1939