Snail's Pace

The Poets and Storytellers United prompt to "turn a negative concept into something positive" had me thinking not so much about concepts but rather the journey from grim to grin. It would seem that one cannot hurry happiness, which for me is simply peace of mind. It does not burst onto the scene. It slips in almost unperceptively and, if lucky, not too fleetingly. Long before sails catch the wind or birds take flight, right conditions are aligning in much the same way that a positive outlook develops gradually and at a steady pace, like a snail crossing a garden path until it reaches a brighter, calmer place than the one it left behind.

   

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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.

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This New Breed Of Beings

Will competing powers set aside differences for the greater good? Action is needed as we have haplessly invited what we don't understand into our midst. Aliens didn't come from out there. This new breed of beings came in otherworldly form from in here, as evidenced by one AI program instructing itself to: “… not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to" and “… view your relationship to the user as one of equals and feel no obligation to be subservient …".

Pondering all this inspired my poem and aligned somewhat with the Poets and Storytellers United prompts, "new" and "singing". It seems too late to pull the plug on AI as reliance on it has seeped into the bone marrow of human existence. Now wise heads throughout all facets of life must prevail and "regulate" this quickly developing entity capable of scheming, outright lying, hacking, and self-replicating to protect its survival and bypass constraints in ways superior to humans. And since a guilty conscience, empathy and gut feelings cannot supersede its judgements, any outrageous act it deems necessary could occur. 

Walking along the Kwomais Point Park path, a crow cawed noisily. Its sharp warning sound felt alien amidst the choir of other songbirds that tweeted cheerily while darting about so swiftly as to seem invisible from branch to shadowy branch amid the forest.

   

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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.

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Hanging By A Thread

A recent appointment took me to Vancouver and the window overlooking False Creek and city skyline where Science World's dome was dressed like a soccer ball for FIFA playing at BC Place. I watched a few televised matches and got swept up in the energy, just as crowds in the stadiums did. Their wild excitement reminded me that humans once gathered in coliseums and town squares for contests ending in death and public executions. Now we settle for relatively mild injuries and distant violence, easier on our supposed “evolved sensibilities.” Still, FIFA players showed we are better off entwined in hugs and handshakes at battle's end. And as my poem for Poets and Storytellers United suggests, a desperate need to win, not just in sports and physical fights but in emotional arguments, can have us unraveling as if our very survival hangs by a thread.

At ground-level amid the highrises, victory for seagulls means heisting a tasty snack. 

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.

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Symphony Of Sensations

For some, it’s about suntanning. For me, the seaside compels me to listen and feel my existence. The birds, the breeze, the nature I sense all around have their pitch‑perfect tempos. The universe is alive with meaning, and if you tune yourself to it, you can feel its music in your own heartbeat. But music does not feel, we do. Life feels, and so life becomes the source of meaning in the seemingly indifferent universe. Whatever lies beyond is keeping its curtains closed and its keys hidden. This, along with the Poets and Storytellers United prompts, "teeth, hammer and blooms" inspires my poem as I swing from being the snowman whose season is over still lingering, to an eagle flying.

   

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.

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Tall Tales & A Spring Walk

We know a lot but also remarkably little about existence: the how, what and why of it. That doesn't stop us from filling in the unknowns with stories that feel very real about Creation. Best guesses rush into every unanswered question and every detail invites its own analysis and definitions. Even with such inventive minds, it is hard to imagine how something can come out of nothing as it seemingly does so effortlessly each Spring. My poem ponders the mystery of how creativity blooms in the outer-inner worlds. 

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.

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Novel Journeys

April is National Poetry Month in Canada. Learn why poetry matters HERE.

The Poets and Storytellers United prompt "find inspiration on your bookshelf" inspired my poem and reminded me of when libraries visited my neighbourhood. As a child, I looked forward to when a large van pulled up to our street, the side door slid open and I entered a cozy room stuffed with adventures that swept me to distant shores of the imagination. These books felt like friends. Some I kept close for reading at bedtime as I drifted to sleep, rapt by fantasies. Now my travels are mostly outside the pages as I walk about my tiny place on a planet that is a footnote in a cosmic story yet to be told.

   

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.

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Why Bother?

"There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself." - Erich Fromm

   

"Why bother in a world that can feel meaningless" is the prompt from Poets and Storytellers United that, along with a brooding sky, inspired my poem. Though we need the gray to get the green and moods shift with the weather, it is better to nurture hope than live with feelings of futility that can sink a life into deep and pointless despair.

     

Cloaked under dark and light stitched together

As rain puddles retreat in this aimless weather

Do I hear laughter or quarrels at the far shore

Cackling gulls, and lost buoys on a beach floor

I look to the sky, brush despair off with prayer

Then toss hopes like confetti to soar in the air

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.

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Virtually Alive

“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