Virtually Human

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” - George Orwell

Deception mixed with emerging AI, and the above quote suggested as a prompt by Poets and Storytellers United, inspired my thoughts and poem. It is a time when late actor Val Kilmer allowed his Deepfake version to play the role he was too ill to finish. This had me pondering the degree to which synthetic people differ from the black and white film era actors who since died but still seem so alive. Nowadays, many of us appear synthetically through various processes on screens. Some fall in love with digital companions who mimic humans but feel nothing. Conversely, humans seem on the path to desensitization, emoting virtually but light on genuine joy or empathy for suffering. Even photos of my walk are paperless pixels. Indeed, the wildly imaginative Orwell might be amazed at how seamlessly the artificial has woven into the fabric of daily life where lines between the acceptably real and not, like truth and lies, blur.

Seemingly alive again as if I never left the stage

Gazing but not seeing, gasping but not breathing

The copy of my former self that delivers its lines

Pretend humans like rumours keep on spreading

Machines talk to machines as if person-to-person

A steady ongoing creep of neither living nor dead

Expressing, without tiring, every mortal sensation

Pixel emotion summoned from codes they are fed

My resurrection cast as a motion-picture miracle

My voice produced virtually, to my ears unheard

My salty tears not tasted, imitations of glee unfelt

Mirror reflections of my existence eerily preserved

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters. 

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report and watch environmental activist, 90-year-old David Suzuki, in an interview.

HOLD ONTO THE LIGHT

Divine Intervention

Conflict amid cries for peace, a house invasion of ants, and the Poets and Storytellers United prompt to "write about something deeply felt" inspired my poem below.

    

Clever enough to fly to the moon and foolish enough to bomb our own planet, I see the contradictions and feel them in myself. Hope and doubt exist side-by-side. I spare butterflies but also kill ants that invade my space. Struggles embed serene scenes. Amazing life forms consume other amazing life forms by design. We love peace yet wars roam the streets and forest floors in an ecosystem nurturing and indifferent. And when we could have done better sooner to keep the planet livable longer, many who naturally fear death refused to see a threat. While waiting for divine intervention, the divine spark of preservation is ready to ignite within the discrepancies of our lives.

Explore more at Poets and Storytellers United, SKYWATCH and Saturday's Critters. 

Check out my sites: Postcards from Penelope Puddle and Musings of A Puddlist In B.C.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report and watch environmental activist, 90-year-old David Suzuki, in an interview.

HOLD ONTO THE LIGHT