Haiku Tuesday: If you go into the woods tonight

Woodsmen come prepared
flint and steel send burning brands
catching tinder smokes.

A single flame blooms
littered leaves and twisty twigs
kindling fears the flame.

Lonely travelers
quit their trek in darkened woods
campfire feels like home.

Foreboding forests
filled with fantastical freaks
flash in fire’s flicker.

Simmering cuppa
blow clear the drifting ashes
satisfying sip.

Haiku Tuesday: We need our dough

4 a.m. arrives
new-age bakers flip the switch
machines never tire

Is something missing
wheat yeast water salt all there
ah the human touch

Automation takes
gives idleness new meaning
empty incentives

Eastward the Levant
its microorganisms
no longer give rise

Break it and share it
bread binds cultures together
without it we starve

Haiku Tuesday: Tolkien in the corner

A hard day’s slaving
at labor meant for machines,
tavern ale awaits.

Wave the bartender
a silver for the table,
let’s toast to friendship.

Blow the frothy foam,
tip your tankard, feel the burn
gasp and wipe your lips.

Tall tales grow bold,
boasts of conquest beg belief,
grins belie the truth.

Conversation ebbs,
backs are slapped, patrons drift out
time to stumble home.


I found an interesting voice synthesizer site ElevenLabs and wondered if it would read poetry. Haikus need pacing, which this fails at. Still this is entirely fake — no humans involved.


DALL-E’s images are getting sloppy. I can’t seem to generate a quality image anymore. Oh well, beggars and choosers and all that…

Haiku Tuesday: The Open Road

 

Sun sears vinyl seats
as the horizon dances,
the mirage beckons.

The backseat cooler
leaks our precious blue ice-melt.
Next gas ninety miles.

Roadside attractions
other-worldly aliens,
dinosaurs loom tall.

The map wrong folded
crackles and flaps, resisting
my seventh attempt.

Five hundred and one
miles done, cassette tape broken
silent hundreds to come.

Haiku Tuesday: Bottled hope

A photorealistic image of a blue glass bottle washed up on a beige sandy shore, inside it is a rolled up message, the sky is stormy, but the sea is calm

Imagine a time
of ships, sails, flags and rigging
and wrecks upon reefs

Pen a solemn oath
sealed with a venomous curse
bitter and spiteful

Upon parchment dear
a last testament writ plain
lies of no regrets

Cast upon the sea
our curiosity piqued
expired salvation

A desperate wish
to connect, to touch a soul
in futures unknown