Creator / imaginer: Dabbler in art, literature and sound.
Ok, this will be the last AI jibberish I’ll share, but it was a fun experiment.
I decided to double down and really test AI video conversion, so I applied it to a few of my idea scribbles to see if it could work me out. The result was disturbing and amusing; I have been laughing at it ever since.
I don’t seem to be able to connect lately,
I feel like I’m unable to communicate effectively,
I’m irritating myself every time I open my mouth,
This makes me feel tired, a term I’m sick of repeating,
People exhaust me, even when seen in moderation,
I don’t have the energy for it all right now,
My words come out awkwardly, and I feel like an alien,
An outcast on an island of beige repetitive tedium,
It feels like there’s a heavy weight on me,
I have the kind of exhaustion that avoids sleep,
I wake up tired, I struggle through the day, then at night,
When I lie down, I’m wide awake for hours,
It’s also the time of year for that annual socialising dread,
Everyone looks so happy and full of excitement,
Either that or they’re about to win an Oscar for best actor,
If you’re like me, hold your head up; it doesn’t get much easier.
Don’t pretend, just let it happen, let it all flow past you,
Conserve your energy, because you’re going to need it,
Merry Christmas, the war with the mind is never over.
I recently used AI to animate old family photos,
I was unprepared for how it would affect me,
Old still photographs that I had looked at countless times,
Came to life, they breathed, they lived again,
And then, like fireflies in the morning light,
Their lives faded out once more,
It evoked such a powerful sensory response,
For six seconds, ghosts came to life on my screen,
For six seconds, I felt their embrace again,
And for six seconds, my heart wanted to believe the lie.
There have been liminal spaces in my life,
Where I found myself transforming internally,
Becoming someone or something else,
Shedding a virtual armoured exoskeleton,
Immediately afterwards, I’m left vulnerable,
This is a time for caution and self-protection,
Because whatever sneaks beneath my guard,
Becomes a part of me, trapped beneath my new shell,
Embedded until my next transformation.
The stars in the sky are like the people around you,
The dim kind are many, and the bright kind are few,
Some stars only shine brighter in their galactic abode,
Surrounded by dim ones who watched them explode,
So, create your own place in the night sky above,
And fill it with bright stars, the kind that you love.
We never spoke apart from several letters,
Childish and hand scrawled, long before email,
Two young children, cousins, distant pen pals,
Living on opposite sides of the earth,
Recently we’ve reconnected,
And I’m constantly surprised at how,
Equally insane and completely alike we are,
Still living on opposite sides of the earth,
The probability against us physically meeting is 99%,
We’re both Grandfathers now, but we’re still kids,
I don’t need to hug him, although I’d like to,
But I can take solace in the fact that,
We are technologically inseparable now,
Two sides of the earth now tethered,
Two lifetimes connected as one,
Real family you just connect with,
And love instantly.
I awoke early again today,
Better to be awake with some control,
Every face in my dreams was a ghost,
It was like a revolving door of the dead,
All dropping in to visit,
I am unsure why last night in particular,
I loved them when they were living,
Now gone, I wish they would stay that way,
Memory is a cruel passenger.
Humanity has placed creativity in stasis,
Imagination lost to technological prostration,
The slow deprogramming of individualism,
The slow programming of conformity,
A world where colour is no longer financially viable,
Home is a small safe white featureless existence,
Where we live laugh love,
Like a programmed flock of electric sheep,
A hive mind sharing one unspoken mantra,
Obey.
I awoke at 4:00am with a worried mind,
Thinking about the future churns my guts,
I’m concerned I won’t have the strength I need,
To deal with the level of change required,
With age I have less will, I need less mental ‘weight’,
Navigating some days now is a real challenge,
I simply don’t have the energy or drive for much,
I feel constantly fatigued and yet I cannot sleep,
I’m running out of time, resources and loved ones,
Work seems over demanding with load increasing,
My mind keeps shutting down when I need it,
Like it has a constantly tripping surge protector,
But I don’t know how much of this is real,
And how much is my mind fabricating woe,
But it’s constantly on my mind, and it is exhausting,
Who knows if I will ever truly rest.
Evolution is being witnessed by the blind,
We are transforming, digitising our souls,
We cast shadows without any light,
Told answers to questions we never learned,
We are the child holding a gun to our heads,
Unable to differentiate toy from weapon.
Dan Verkys 