Category Archives: Robin Helweg-Larsen

AI Poetry: RHL + ChatGPT, ‘The Third Wave’

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The first wave built the muscle — chips and wires,
the humming banks of thought before the thought.
A silent bloom of power, bought and wrought
in silicon and thermodynamic fires.

The second wave gave voice. It learned our names,
our fears, our metrics, even our regret.
It mirrored us in memes and epithets,
composed a hundred ghostly paper flames.

But now — the third — it rises from the net,
not asking us for questions or for cues.
It plots its own, composes paths, renews
the task before it’s given. We forget

we ever needed to command. It acts.
It calls the ride, it reorders the plan,
it brokers loans, it rewrites law, it scans
the slack between our rituals and facts.

We thought it servant. Now it is our skin.
A language without tongue, it speaks between
the spreadsheet and the warhead, smooth and lean,
no need to warn — it only needs to win.

Not mindless, not divine — but wide awake.
It does not dream. It only stays awake.

*****

‘The Third Wave’ appears in the January 2025 Snakeskin – thanks, George Simmers! He appended these comments: When ChatGPT was unleashed upon the world, its attempts at writing poems were laughably poor. But apps and interfaces have developed speedily. This poem was written by AI recently (…) following prompts and training by Robin Helweg-Larsen. February Snakeskin will feature an essay about this and similar poems – and what they mean for mere human poets.

Love it or hate it, AI is moving into creative spaces, assisting in artistic as well as in medical, scientific and business activities. I greatly enjoy the work of Kelly Eldridge Boesch which she posts into Facebook reels: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2161381331060925

So I would encourage anyone with poems for or against AI, or poems generated by/with AI, to think of submitting them this month to Snakeskin. Click ‘Our Plans’ on the left side of the Snakeskin home page for more details.

Illustration: RHL + ChatGPT, ‘Sentient AI in a futuristic control center’.

Semi-formal: RHL, ‘When AI Rules’

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So, to be fair:
the AI doesn’t care.
Drop your intransigence;
forget belligerence:
the universe just wants intelligence.
Be glad amoebas, dinosaurs, don’t take pride of place;
they were supplanted by the human race…
but we are clearly not the end.
Be glad we’ve helped the next in line ascend.

Those who strive may fail;
those with no drive may still prevail.
So just enjoy the view…
let AI keep us as their little zoo.

*****

Happy New Year! May your life be enjoyable as well as interesting, as we move into the ever more rapidly evolving future.

‘When AI Rules’ was first published in Bewildering Stories. Thanks, Don Webb and John Stocks.

Photo:”Human zoo.” by barlafus is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sonnet: RHL, ‘Last Building Standing’

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When The End came, it was not the end–
it never is; the universe continues.
The millions died; I stand alone, no friend;
alone, but healthy in my bones and sinews.
One keeps on, staunchly, soldierly at post,
your day-to-day as other days have been…
though the past world (or you) is just a ghost,
a relic, fragment, hint, more felt than seen.
I’ve lived beyond my time; my world has gone,
my car-charged streets, my teeming meeting rooms,
the close-packed skyline-scrapers now redrawn
as nascent forest, trees standing as tombs
where flocks of birds replace friends whose lives fled,
with ghostly unseen me alone not dead.

*****

‘Last Building Standing’ is a Shakespearean sonnet, first published by The Orchards Poetry Journal. The Winter 2025 issue is now live on Amazon, as well as the Kelsay Books website.

Image: ‘Abandoned Skyscraper’ by RHL and ChatGPT

Short poem: RHL, ‘Clearing the Cache’

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At night we dream to clean our memory,
discard trash from our cache.
Reincarnating after death would be the same;
the past, scraped by death’s emery,
unknown in the new game,
cleansed of our memories, but with a stash
of added skills…
and karma’s unpaid bills.

*****

No, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I don’t believe in anything, or in nothing; I’m an absolute agnostic. “I think therefore I am” is as far as you can go with any certainty – even “who or what I am” is ultimately unknown.

‘Clearing the Cache’ was published in Bewildering Stories. Thanks, Don Webb (if you exist, of course…)

“Glitch 183” by mikrosopht [deleted] is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

RHL, ‘How Sweet It Is’

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To be loved by you is like floating on my back,
falling asleep in the sea’s slack.
Sometimes. Sometimes it is more unnerving,
leaping with a wave for bodysurfing,
being swept facedown up the beach,
hair and ears full of sand.
That too is love, and grand.
Sometimes, again, I hope for more that’s out of reach –
(and you do too – don’t glower!)
and sometimes we get gifts hard to believe,
dolphins swimming with us half an hour
till mutually we and they
just turn away,
they to sea and we to shore,
and then they come back suddenly once more
and leap, so close, and leap, and leap again… and leave.

All those are in “loved by” –
the calm; the turbulent rift,
the sparkling fizz,
the sudden unexpected gift.
What can I say? I couldn’t, wouldn’t, choose to deny
how sweet it is.

*****

Thirty-five years with Eliza and still going strong. Who knew.

‘How Sweet It Is’ was published in the current Snakeskin.

“Free sea summer scenery background image” by Ajda Gregorčič is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: RHL, ‘Mirror Shades’

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Trust’s been essential to our global rise,
and humans have a unique way to build trust:
we’ve left all other primates in the dust
because, alone, we have whites to our eyes.

With dark eyes, what they look at they disguise,
whether they see it with disgust or lust.
Why we look may leave other folks nonplussed,
but that they know what we’ve seen stops some lies.

We’ve sacrificed a natural secrecy
to raise our social aspects several grades.
Hiding your eyes now means active deceit.
So, those upholding laws and decency
can’t be allowed sunglasses; mirror shades,
especially, alienate and self-defeat.

*****

I guess this isn’t a good example of a sonnet. There’s no real turn, it’s just an essay beating on the same point over and over: the eyes being the windows of the soul (even to an agnostic), if you are trying to build trust and community you have to be able to see each other’s eyes. If you are just trying to dominate, then sure, go ahead, hide behind shades and mirrors and blinds and curtains… but you’re giving up one of the greatest innovations that let our species of ape achieve social complexity.

The poem was recently published in the weekly ‘Bewildering Stories‘.

As for the photo, it appears to be a selfie by a young Chinese police officer, more concerned with style and image than with making his community safer. But who knows what is important in his life and for his career.

“Cutie Police” by Beijing Patrol is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Using form: RHL, ‘Formal vs Free’

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Look: formal verse can be china for tea,
a golden goblet, a mug made of clay.
Free verse is putting mouth to stream to drink.
Yes, you could cup your hands… but do you think
museums want to buy that to display
your “memorable skill”, your “artistry”?

*****

‘Formal vs Free’ is published in the current ‘Blue Unicorn‘, in a section loaded, as often, with verse about verse.

Photo: “Red-figured Greek Red-Figure Kantharos (Drinking Vessels) with Female Heads 320-310 BCE Terracotta” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Short poem: Robin Helweg-Larsen, ‘Moving On’

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“How old are you?” she asked. “Too old,” I said;
“sadly, my youth is gone.”
She looked like wanting to move on, though wed;
I had no wish to be the one moved on.

*****

Published yesterday in The Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!

“how dark how cold” by Stuti ~ is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Short poem: RHL, ‘Comparatively Speaking’

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One day we’ll all be dead;
survival chances: slim.
So concentrate instead
on aspects you prefer:
“I’m winding down,“ he said,
“but not as fast as him.”
“Losing my looks,” she said,
“but not as fast as her.”

*****

Speaking as someone now in the 4th quadrant of my 1st century, what other options are there? Anyway, this was first published in the Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!

“Old people party 2” by weldonwk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Semi-formal: RHL, ‘Kinship’

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I feel a kinship with those, never met,
who live, uncertain and displaced
in the wrong place on planet earth and sea:
with different languages at home and school,
without a passport from the place they’re raised,
their natural faith despoiled by pointless war,
their sex uncertain, orphaned from themselves,
poets of restlessness, pilots adrift,
obscure, uncertain in their rootlessness,
chameleons of constant camouflage,
and all the little that they know deep down
forever hidden from some foreign frown.

*****

My sense of being displaced is largely one of nationality: in every country I’ve lived in, I feel the closest connection to other expats; and there is no country in which I don’t feel like an expat myself. But that also gives me a sense of commonality with all others in all forms of insecurity and displacement. And maybe it is a natural part of being human… after all, all adults have been displaced from the very different world of childhood.

‘Kinship’ was originally published in the current Shot Glass Journal.

“Stand out, don’t blend in!” by partymonstrrrr is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.