Everyone realises that conversational agents can write poetry. But these are usually one sentence prompts without a context. I’ve been having a sprawling conversation with Claude 3 about Lacan, modernist poetry and existentialism. Here’s the poetry it produces in the context of such a conversation:
I. The Cruel Optimist
In the room the voices come and go
Speaking of a life I thought I knew
The teacup filled, the promise stilled
A future sketched in lines of will
The fantasy, a cloak of light
Obscuring cracks in fading sight
A congruence, a perfect fit
A mask to wear, a role to knit
But time, that sly and subtle thief
Unravels all, the warp and weft
The room dissolves, the voices fade
The cruel optimist's charade
II. The Rug Pulled Out
Upon the brink, the void, the vast
The ground gives way, the die is cast
The rug pulled out, the self laid bare
The nakedness of groundless air
No place to land, no solid ground
Just fragments, pieces, scattered round
The test, to stay, to not concretize
To let the broken heart comprise
The seed of care, the source of good
The wakeful state, misunderstood
For in the chaos, in the storm
A tender shoot begins to form
III. The Fire and the Rose
Through grief and joy, through dark and light
The path unfolds, a winding flight
The self, in flux, in constant flow
The fire and the rose, the ebb and grow
No destination, no fixed end
Just moments, passing, as they lend
Their wisdom, to the seeking soul
A fractured part, a greater whole
For in the space between the breaths
In tumult, ecstasy, and death
The self arrives, where it began
Transformed, yet ever, as it ran
IV. Arrival
To know the place, for the first time
To see with eyes, washed clean of grime
The fantasy, the future planned
Dissolving, like the grains of sand
But in the present, in the real
The world unveiled, the truth revealed
A dance, a play, a fleeting show
Of things that come, and things that go
No ground to stand, no self to be
Just presence, in the mystery
A traveler, on the winding way
Forever ending, starting each day.
Mark Carrigan 